The Survivors
by As the Robin Flies
Summary: Aqua O'Shea, at the age of sixteen, is separated from her brothers while hiding in hiding from race of alien parasites. The four Hillad children are told to run by their parents before it is too late. They are the survivors, but can they stay that way?
1. Prologue

Prologue

Endangered

My name is Aqua O'Shea, and I am one of the few humans left on planet Earth. We have become an endangered species. It's not what you're thinking, though. We didn't wipe ourselves out with nuclear weapons, except for those few insane survivors who had nuclear grade bomb shelters. No, we were invaded by the species that we call the Souls. They are parasites that take over a human body as their host, forcing the human's consciousness to fade away from their own body. When the host body dies, the Soul will move on to a new body, or even a new planet. As long as they have a healthy host, they can live forever.

But I escaped this fate with my older brothers, Kyle and Ian. Others did too—I know that—but we don't know where they are, or who they are. Anyone could be a Soul, and you don't know whether they are or not until you're close enough to shine a flashlight into their eyes and see if there is a silver disk that reflects the light back at you, or feel the back of their neck for the scar from the insertion. And if you get that close, it's too late. You're already gone, your body being prepared to be used as a host for the next Soul to land on their futuristic spaceships, your consciousness slipping away until it fades completely. And then you're gone forever.

I was fifteen when they came. Others I know were older, and there are many who were younger, but we're all alive now, and that makes us all ancient because we survived this with ourselves intact, with our bodies still under our own control. In my years of living on the run, I've lost so much, so many people I love and treasure, but I've also found so much more than I ever could have imagined. I've found an extended family that I had never realized that I was missing until they were there, surrounding me. I've lost brothers, I've found sisters, and I've discovered the one thing that I thought was gone from the world, that I thought I would never be able to experience. Love. Through that, my family and I, we're closer than we ever would have been without the invasion, and this...

This is our story.

* * *

><p>Okay, so this is my new story based on the Host. It starts off in the middle of the invasion, before everybody was turned, and will continue on until two years after the end of <span>The Host<span>, so it spans seven years.

If I get some good feedback to this, I'll post Chapter 1 on Wednesday, if not, I'll just wait until next weekend. Please tell me what you think!


	2. Escape

Chapter 1

Escape

**Portland, Oregon**

**Aqua**

Somebody was shaking my shoulder. "Aqua, Ai, wake up," Ian whispered. I was glad that it was him, rather than Kyle. If Kyle was waking me I would have ice-cold water soaking my bed and I would shiver from the cold for the next several hours.

I blearily opened my eyes, rubbing the tiredness from them as I sat up. "What's going on?" I hissed, knowing that I had to be quiet so that we weren't heard.

"It's time," Ian told me grimly, his mouth, so often smiling, set into a hard line.

"Tonight?" I breathed. He nodded. "Okay, I'll be ready. How much time do I have?" I asked.

"Fifteen minutes. Be downstairs in fifteen minutes. We finished packing the cooler and some bags with as much as we could. Along with plenty of water. We just have to get it all in the car now. Just take a backpack with the necessities," he commanded, all business.

I nodded. I was ready for this. I had been ready for weeks really, ever since we had realized that our parents had come back from their vacation so much meeker, with silver mirrors behind their eyes and thin scars on the back of their necks, just below the hairline. I had known that this time was coming. And now it was time to act, time to escape. I took a minute to say a mental goodbye to the house and to my parents, who by now weren't even my parents any more. They only looked like them. After the minute was up, I sprang into action.

First I grabbed the empty backpack that was sitting by my bedroom door. Then some clothes; a pair of shorts, a pair of jeans, three t-shirts, and some underwear, bras, and socks were rolled and placed in the bottom. I also stuffed in an extra set of sneakers. I knew that I'd need them when my first pair wore out. Then I changed out of my pajamas and into another pair of jeans and a t-shirt, pulling a hooded sweatshirt on and zipping it up. I stuffed my raincoat into the backpack as well, thinking that I'd need it, what with the weather around here, and then tried to think of anything else I might need if I got separated from Kyle and Ian.

I grabbed a small flashlight and a bunch of extra batteries, my favorite book, a mechanical pencil, lead, and a notebook, sunglasses, thinking I could use them to disguise my eyes if came to that, and a large plastic water bottle.

Then I headed to the bathroom. I grabbed a fresh toothbrush, a full tube of toothpaste, and a couple of bars of soap. After a minute of indecision I also grabbed a full bottle of shampoo. I didn't want to risk bringing too much to carry, and the backpack was pretty full at this point, but I'd just use the soap up faster if I didn't bring it. I went quietly down the stairs and filled two water bottles at the sink in the kitchen before sticking them into the pockets on the sides of my backpack.

I went to the door and pulled on my usual sneakers, tying my long black hair into a ponytail as I did so. I was glad that I always wore a ton of hair ties on my wrist, so I didn't have to worry about packing them. I took a deep breath and left the house for the last time, closing the door silently behind me. Kyle and Ian were in the car already, Ian behind the wheel, and I climbed into the back seat, slipping my backpack off as I buckled my seat belt. The trunk had our large cooler that we used when we went camping in it, along with several brown paper bags filled non-perishables. We had been stocking up whenever our 'parents' had sent us to buy food, although buy wasn't the correct term anymore, seeing as the parasites didn't believe in currency. There were also a bunch of gallon containers filled with water.

Kyle and Ian each also, which were in the back seat next to me. And there was a small duffel bag full of what I assumed were other things that we might need, although slightly less necessary, such as sleeping bags and extra layers of clothing. The first aid kit sat right next to it. I recognized it from our many camping trips over the years, and I knew it was well stocked.

"Good timing," Kyle said. He didn't have his usual spark though. And I knew why. A little more than a week ago, his girlfriend, Jodi, was taken over by a parasite. It was too late to save her. That was when we truly realized that we needed to go. It was just parents that they were taking over anymore, they had moved on to their children.

"I already knew what I needed," I told him grimly.

"At least we're prepared," Ian said. We sat in silence, thinking about those who hadn't been so lucky, like Jodi, as to figure out the invasion before they were captured, all of the friends and neighbors who had already been taken away from us, who had been forced to succumb to the parasites that had invaded our parents.

"Let's go," I said firmly. That was all it took for Ian to put the keys into the ignition and turn them, the engine quietly rumbling to life. We pulled quietly out of the driveway and onto the dark street. No other cars were out, as it was still several hours until dawn, and the road was silent and utterly still. I didn't speak, and neither did they, as we quickly escaped the place that, for fifteen years, I had called home.

* * *

><p><strong>3 days later, Atlanta, Georgia<strong>

**Tyler**

"Tyler, you need to take your siblings, and you need to get out," my mother said to me.

"You have to come with us," I told her fiercely.

"We can't do that, Ty," she said, using the nickname that I had shed when I was thirteen when I had insisted that it sounded like I was a baby. Only Gabby was allowed to call me that now. "If your dad and I go with you, they will know that something is up. If we stay and lie and cover for you for a few days you'll have time to get away from here, to get into the wilderness and away from them."

By them, I knew she meant the invaders, the things that were slowly taking over the bodies of the people that I knew and loved. Our family was one of the only human ones left in the neighborhood, and I knew that they were coming for us next just as well as my parents did. The shells of their friends were coming over the next evening, and we had to be gone by then. Gone and far away. "I can't leave you here to die," I whispered to her. I was not going to cry. I was _not_ going to cry. I was seventeen now. I had to be strong, for her, and for my three younger siblings who were counting on me.

"You must. And we're not dying," she said.

"Yeah, it's worse than dying," I insisted. "It's disappearing. It's like you'll never have existed at all!"

She pulled me into a big hug, although I was several inches taller than she was, before releasing me. "Of course we'll have existed. As long as you remember us, we will have existed, as long as you don't forget us."

"Never," I promised

"Good. Now, go. Grab your siblings and their emergency bags. Your father's packed the van with as much food and water and other necessities that he can fit that still leaves you all room to sit, but you have to go now," she urged.

"I know," I whispered.

She smiled weakly at me. "Go, I'll get Gabby ready, you wake Carson and Tanya." I nodded and we walked up the stairs. She entered Gabby's room and I went into the one that Carson and I shared. He was staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, like he had known that it was going to be tonight, that we would have to leave.

When he heard the door open he turned to face me. "Is it time?" he asked. I nodded grimly and he got out of bed, already dressed in normal clothes. I guess he hadn't bothered to change into pajamas. He could sense that it was coming, just like I could. He grabbed the two backpacks full of clothes, toiletries, and a couple of other survival necessities in case we got separated from the van. He threw mine to me and I slipped the straps over my shoulders while he did the same with his. Even though he was sixteen, almost a man, like I was, I was still fiercely protective of him. I didn't want him to have to leave the safe haven that our home had been for the last weeks as slowly, everybody around us had been taken over. I wanted him to be safe, and now that could only happen far away from here, where nobody would be able to find us.

"Get in the car. Dad should be out there finishing packing it up. Mom's waking Gabby. I've just got to get Tanya. As soon as that's done, we have to be gone," I told him in a business-like tone, trying not to show the emotion that was coursing through my veins like fire.

He swallowed, but kept up his brave face as he left the room. I waited until he was halfway down the stairs before I slipped into Tanya's room. At thirteen, she knew what was happening, and she knew that it couldn't be stopped, and she knew that we had to leave Mom and Dad behind in order to stay safe for the next few days. By the time they had been taken over, we would be far enough away that they wouldn't be able to find us. Not easily, at least.

I gently shook her shoulder and her eyes flew open. She had always been a lightly sleeper. It was easy for her to fall asleep, but just as easy for her to wake again too. "Come on, Tanya, we have to leave," I told her. Her face paled and she bit her lip, but nodded all the same, sitting up slowly. She was still in her pajamas, so I left her to change, waiting outside her room and focusing on steadying my breathing.

Within two minutes, I was calmer, and she was out of her room, wearing a sturdy pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and one of my old sweatshirts that I had passed down to her when I grew out of it. She had her own emergency backpack slung over her shoulders. I took her smaller hand in my own and we went down the stairs. Gabby's room was silent, so I assumed that Mom had already gotten her ready and that everybody was just waiting for the two of us.

I was right. The house was empty and it had a deserted feel to it, but I walked through it steadily, trying not to show how quickly my heart was beating, how scared I really was. I had to be strong for the little girl holding my hand. Except that she wasn't a little girl anymore, at thirteen, she was younger than most were when they went through something traumatic in their lives, and it was forcing her to mature. She knew I was sacred, too, and she squeezed my hand, reassuring me that she was still there, still the same as she always had been. I smiled down at her, a real smile, and we left the house through the front door, closing it softly behind us.

Carson was sitting in the passenger seat of the van, and Mom was putting Gabby in and buckling her up. At eight, Gabby had no idea what was going on, other than that something was wrong, and that we were worried. Now she knew that we had to leave. Her small backpack was in front of her, situated between her legs and the drivers' seat.

"Ready?" I asked Tanya as we approached.

"It doesn't matter if I am or not," she said wisely. "I have to be."

I knew exactly what she meant. We were all maturing faster than we should have, all growing up before our time. I was going to be in charge or keeping three people safe before I was even officially an adult. It was scary, and we _weren't_ ready, but we had to grow into the role whether we wanted to or not. And we didn't want to. We had to.

Dad stepped forward and he swept us into a hug together. I was the same height as him now, but he still crushed Tanya and I against him like we were eight and four, rather than seventeen and thirteen. "Good luck, you two. Remember, you're going to be some of the last of us left. Keep yourselves alive," he told us, pulling back and looking each of us in the face.

I nodded and Tanya shook next to me, the fear finally hitting her. Hard. Mom came over next, hugging us goodbye, leaving Gabby buckled into the car, her door closed as a look of horror came over her face. She knew we were saying goodbye. She knew that they weren't coming with us.

Dad also noticed this. "Go, go now," he said, taking Tanya around to the other side of the car as I got into the driver's seat, tossing my backpack over my sisters' head and into the trunk. Carson looked at me nervously. His seat belt was already buckled and I grabbed mine, hearing it click quietly into place. The keys were already in the ignition and I turned them, hearing the engine roar to life in the quiet pre-dawn air. I said a last silent goodbye to everything that I loved, my home, my friends, my parents... my Mia, who had already been lost, ripped away from me for almost two weeks. I backed out of the driveway.

In the mirror, I saw the tears that rolled down Gabby's still-chubby cheeks as she stared back out her window to where Mom and Dad were standing, waving us off, sad smiles on their faces, for they were saving us, but in doing that, they had to let us go and they had to stay behind. I saw Mom turn into Dad's arms and I knew that, like Gabby, she had succumbed to tears.

I wanted to cry too, to go back and let her hold me and tell me that it was alright like she used to when I was younger, but I didn't. I couldn't. I had to be strong. Hands shaking, I kept driving, away from everything that any of us had ever known and loved. It was gone now, and we had to survive off the love of each other, the only ones left in the world that we could trust.

* * *

><p>One week, just like I promised. Anyway, here's Chapter 1, which I have to say is much more interesting than the Prologue.<p>

Thanks for reading and please leave a review! I'll have the next chapter up next Saturday.


	3. Listen

Chapter 2

Listen

**5 months later, somewhere in North Dakota**

**Aqua**

"I'm telling you, Ai," Ian said to me, "there are tons of places around here that we could still raid from. We shouldn't have to go anywhere for a while yet."

"Yeah, Ai," Kyle agreed. "We've been here for less than two weeks. There's nothing to worry about."

We were hiding out in a thicket of forest right now, and the car was parked a few hundred yards away, carefully camouflaged so that it couldn't be seen from a distance, and we were too far out for anybody to find us anyway. Nobody really lived in North Dakota, after all, even before the invasion had occurred. It was, if anything, less populated now because of the parasites' preferences to live in largely populated areas.

"Listen to me," I whispered urgently, shaking Ian's shoulders as I spoke, trying to make him understand. And to think that Kyle was usually the stubborn one. "I'm pretty sure that one of them saw me on the last raid."

"That's impossible," Ian said, waving it off. "If they had seen you then they would have either gotten a Seeker, or followed you themselves. Then we would be found out."

I sighed. It wasn't like him to be careless, but I could see that they just weren't going to listen to me. "I thought I was an equal part of this team," I told them honestly. "I thought that you two would trust my judgment, but, apparently, I was wrong." I let out a bitter laugh.

"Ai," Kyle said, grabbing my shoulder as I turned away from him, storming past.

"Don't call me that," I told him, shaking his hand off of me and walking to the edge of our makeshift campground where there was a tree that I could climb to get away from them. That was how I had always handled it before the invasion when they were trying to get to me. I climbed a tree to escape. They couldn't follow me, being too big and heavy to climb any higher than the first few branches, whereas I had ample practice scaling up even the more slender limbs. It helped that I was smaller too.

"Aqua, wait," Ian said. I turned and faced him, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, wondering if I was going to get an apology, if they were going to listen to me.

"Yes?" I asked stonily.

"Look, we know that we have to keep moving, we really do, but we're safe here, at least for a couple more days." I gritted my teeth with anger. Now he was acting like an idiot, which was definitely more of a Kyle thing to do. Ian was the smart one. He should have known that wasn't what I was arguing about. He _had_ to know. I was arguing because I felt like I wasn't a part of the team, like my opinions didn't matter, like I was just along for the ride. My life was on the line just as much as theirs were if something went wrong, so why didn't I get a say in our methods of survival, why wasn't my opinion requested in our decisions?

"You know that's not really what this is about," I told him.

"Then what is it about?" Kyle asked. He was even slower on the uptake.

"This is about me feeling like I'm not part of a team, like all the decisions are being made for me, like you two don't care what I think!" I exclaimed. I was almost shouting now, which probably wasn't a good thing, but at that moment, I didn't care.

"Of course you're a part of this team," Ian told me. "We're in this together."

"Then why aren't my opinions included in these decisions, why don't you really listen to what I have to say? My life is in just as much danger as yours if something goes wrong, so why shouldn't you give me a say in what we do to keep ourselves safe from those parasites?" I asked, storming up to him.

Kyle and Ian were both standing now too. "We're your brothers," Kyle pointed out. "We're supposed to protect you." I knew he was thinking of Jodi, how she had been captured and he felt like it was because he hadn't been there to save her, that he hadn't been able to get to her in time. I knew about the last time that he had seen her, when she had been nothing more than a shell of her former self, and that he hadn't been able to stand it, that he had left without ever getting to say good by. Right now, though, I didn't care. I was too mad to care.

"Yes, you're supposed to protect me," I growled, poking him in the chest as I stormed up to him. "But doesn't that involve doing the most to keep me safe? Shouldn't you listen when I tell you that we might be in danger?"

Now Kyle was getting angry too. "It means that you should listen to us, that you should trust that we know what's best for you," he snarled.

"Ugh, just because you're four years older than me does not make you smarter, does not make you the boss of me, that you can control me!" I shouted, finally let my anger grow to its full force.

"Mom and Dad are gone," Ian said. "We're all that you have left."

That was a low blow, and I could tell that he knew it. "I know," I whispered, "but right now I wish you weren't." I could feel the tears threatening to spill from my eyes, but I wasn't going to let them see me cry. I did the only thing that I could. I turned and ran, wiping my streaming eyes on the back of my sleeve as I did. I could hear their footsteps crashing through the underbrush after me, but I was faster, more nimble. I was running for the car. Over the last months, they had started teaching me how to drive, and I was confident that I would be able to at least get far enough away to have a good cry and gather my thoughts before I came back.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Kyle trying to stop me. Without thinking, I whipped my fist back and punched him hard on his already crooked nose. He gasped in surprise, his hands moving to his face, shock in his eyes. I was shocked too, that I could do that to my own brother, but I didn't stop. And it was too late for them to catch me. I could see the car.

Without even slowly down, I bent to where I knew the keys were hidden, just in front of the back tire. Then, without even tearing away the camouflage on the windshield, I threw the door open and climbed into the drivers seat before slamming it closed behind me and locking it. I thrust the keys into the ignition and turned them. Then, hearing the engine come to life, I stepped hard on the gas, and the car jerked forward with a jolt. The windshield was still mostly covered and I couldn't see where I was going, not that I was paying attention. In the mirror, I could see Kyle and Ian both jumping up and down, yelling for me too stop. Then I saw the fear on their faces, the panic in their voices.

I turned around to face the front again in order to see what they saw that had them so terrified, but I was just a second too late. I didn't have a chance to do anything to stop the onslaught of pain that I was rushing towards. I couldn't stop.

The next thing I felt registered was the pain as I was thrown forward against the steering wheel, no seat belt or airbags to protect me. Then everything went black.

**Three days later, farther South**

**Aqua**

There was pain everywhere. Okay, not everywhere, but in a lot of places. The worst was my head. With every beat of my heart the pain flared stronger and I could hear a constant throbbing. There was a stinging above my left eye, too, and the pain inside my head was right behind that spot.

Then there was my chest. Every breath hurt as my longs filled with and emptied of air. And my left side and left arm were aching too, a few places stinging, although those pains weren't as bad as the aches. My legs seemed okay, and I wiggled my fingers and toes experimentally, counting them off in my head. All twenty digits were still attached and mobile. That was always a plus. I sighed in relief and my chest let out a burst of sudden pain. I groaned.

Suddenly there were voices around me, and I was worried that I had been taken by Seekers and they were fixing me up in one of their hospitals to ready my body for insertion. I relaxed quickly though, realizing that they were the voices of my brothers. They sounded worried, but I couldn't understand them.

My hearing slowly adjusted itself until I could make out their words. "Aqua?" one of them asked. Ian. It was Ian's voice. "Ai, wake up, please," he said, reaching out to touch my shoulder with his hand, very gently, as though I was a delicate flower.

My eyes fluttered open and I saw that we were inside a moving car. It wasn't our car though. It was a mini van and I was lying down across the back three seats. Ian was crouched between the two middle ones and I could make out the back of Kyle's head in the driver's seat. "You're awake," Ian said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," I told him. Then I groaned. Talking made my head and chest hurt more.

"Kyle, she's awake," Ian said, louder this time.

"Yes, I heard you the first time," he said. He turned back and grinned widely at me. I managed a weak smile back at him before he turned back around to watch the road, rather than roasting under Ian's glare any longer. Ian just had to be the responsible one.

"How long have I been out?" I whispered. It didn't hurt quite so much to whisper. At least, it didn't make my head throb so much.

"A little more than three days," Ian told me. "We've been able to give you water, and fix up your cuts a bruises, but we think that you might have a minor concussion and a sprained wrist. And we couldn't get any real food into you either. If you hadn't woken up soon we were going to try to wake you up ourselves.

"Yeah, Ian was even thinking about letting me dump ice-water on you," Kyle said from the front seat, laughing.

"I was not!" Ian objected. I laughed, but it turned into coughing and he looked at me worriedly. "Are you alright?"

"No, I hurt just about everywhere on my left side, it hurts to breath, and I have a splitting headache," I said. He looked even more worried. "I'll be fine eventually. No lasting damage," I reassured him. "I just need some time to recover before I go on any raids."

"Yeah, you're not going on any raids again any time soon," Kyle told me. "And I think you need more driving lessons, too."

"Yes, rule number one, keep your eyes on the road," Ian said seriously. Kyle laughed and I smiled weakly. Ian even chuckled a bit too.

My stomach let out a loud growl. "Hungry?" Ian asked. I nodded earnestly. Now that it had been mentioned, I was pretty sure that I could eat a whole elephant if we had one. "We'll just sit you up, and you can have some food."

This was, of course, easier said than done. Any movement increased the pain in my side and my chest, and sitting up made me dizzy, which made me pretty certain that they were right about the concussion idea.

"Argh," I groaned as I settled so that I was sitting back against one side of the car, my legs stretched out in front of me across the rest of the seats.

Ian handed me a sandwich and I took it gratefully in my good hand, the one without the sprained wrist, before biting into it. The bread was soft and the meat and cheese were delicious, although that may only have been because I hadn't eaten for a few days. Food always tastes better when you're hungry. I finished it quickly, and I almost asked for another, when I realized that I should probably wait and let my stomach adjust to having food in it again.

Instead, I sat back against the side of the car, trying to relax through the pain. Ian handed me a water bottle and I drank from it greedily, emptying it halfway before handing it back to him. "Thirsty?" he asked, smirking. He seemed a whole lot less worried now.

"Well, not anymore," I told him, grinning back. Then my grin faded as I remembered why I had been so hungry and thirsty in the first place. "I think we have to talk about something," I told him seriously.

He noticed my tone and quickly figured out what I meant. He sighed, settling down between the two center seats of the mini van. "Yeah, I know," he said. "I was just hoping it could wait until you were feeling a bit better."

"Well it's going to happen now, because it's important," I told him. "The whole reason I'm in this mess is because we weren't listening to each other, so we're going to listen now," I told him. "And that includes you, Kyle."

"I'm listening," he called back. He winked at me in the mirror and I chuckled lightly, trying to stop the pain as much as I could, but not completely hiding my wince.

Ian leaned forward but I shot him a look and he settled back, looking worried again. "Honestly, I'll be fine," I sighed, exasperated. "Now, I'm going to tell you my problem, then you can tell me yours and then we are going to come to an agreement, okay?" He nodded. "Good. I'm starting now."

* * *

><p>Voila! Chapter 2 is up and ready for reading. I just want to thank everybody who has read and reviewed so far. You are what keeps me writing this. Seriously, I have review alerts just sitting in my inbox so that I remember that my work is appreciated. Next chapter will be next Saturday.<p>

Please keep reading and reviewing! I love the feedback!

**Ian lover:** Thank you so much! I'm a sucker for compliments. Anyway, here's the update for you.


	4. Memories

Chapter 3

Memories

**1 week later, somewhere in South Dakota**

**Aqua**

Once we had gotten to talk properly to each other, it had actually been quite simple for the three of us to come to an agreement. I had explained that I felt like I wasn't an equal part of this team, and Ian and Kyle had told me that as my older brothers, they felt like it was their job to protect me.

From there, we had simply agreed that in a situation with an immediate threat, I would do what they said to get away, but that if I thought that something could potentially lead to a threat, they should probably heed my warnings. I had a notoriously good instinct with that kind of thing, but they were still better than me in a fight, although that was something that I was going to work on fixing, as soon as all my injuries were healed.

I still got slightly nauseous if I moved my head sharply or moved to quickly after I had been sitting for a while, but most of the soreness in my arm and shoulder was gone. The cut on my head was almost completely healed, although it was definitely going to leave a faint scar, and my wrist was still stuck in a makeshift sling until Ian deemed it mostly healed. Unfortunately, that would be a lot longer than I thought it should be. I had taken to doing some stretches with it during my watch, while they were both asleep. That way I would still have full motion when it was completely recovered.

It was just too bad Kyle's nose would never be the same again. Apparently I had broken it when I had punched him in the face, a fact that made me somewhat proud. Although, it wasn't anywhere near the first time it had been broken, so it seemed to just be getting more and more crooked with each passing break.

The first time it had been Ian when he was really pissed about something that Kyle said about him and his ability to play football. They were younger then, only in middle school. It was one of the only times that I had ever seen Ian lose his temper.

The next time had been in a backyard football game, when someone had 'accidentally' elbowed him in the face. He had been being really obnoxious, though. I couldn't exactly blame the other guy.

The last time had been Jodi, when Kyle had first tried to kiss her. This was before they were actually together, when he was a junior and she was a sophomore. She hadn't really liked him, at least it had seemed that way, and I guess that he surprised her, so she punched him in the face and broke his nose. Then she had worriedly walked him to the school nurse, who had gotten an ambulance and brought him to the hospital. They patched his nose up really quickly, but she had apparently gone up to him the next day after school and kissed him, saying that it was an apology. They had been together ever since. Well, until the invasion, that is.

I sighed, drawn out of my memories and back into the cool night air by the thoughts of the invasion. It was my watch at the moment and I shivered, pulling Kyle's jacket tighter around me. Right now, we were sheltering in the mountains and it was much colder than it had been lately. It was starting to turn to fall and we would have to head south soon to stay warm, maybe down into Texas or something. That would be an interesting adventure, seeing as we had only ever lived in Portland. I sighed and stuffed my hand—the one _not_ in a sling—into the pocket of Kyle's jacket. Then I hunkered down against the rock outside of our temporary cave home to finish my watch.

**1 month later, some farm in Florida**

**Tyler**

Carson woke me up a little after midnight. It was my turn for watch. I'd watch until about four, and then I would wake Tanya up for her turn. The watches were split between the three of us every night, since Gabby was too young to be able to keep a proper watch and needed the most rest of the four of us.

I settled myself in the doorway of the old abandoned farmhouse were staying in. The field that it was in was currently lying fallow, so the Soul in a farmer's body who owned the land didn't know that we were there, as he didn't need to deal with this field. It meant that, for the time being, we were pretty safe. We could take some of the crops from his other fields and even eggs from his chickens if we were careful.

As usual on my watches, my thoughts wandered as my eyes scanned the land, normally to painful topics. Tonight was one of the worst. Before I could stop them, thoughts of Mia filled my mind, the ringing of her laugh, the warmth that spread from her brown eyes as they looked into mine, the feel of her lips against mine. That was all gone now. Well, she technically was still there—or at least her body was—but her mind had been erased, replaced by the parasite that had been implanted into her.

That was how we had figured out what was happening. I mean, we had been suspicious before, but Mia really confirmed it, made everything real. I lost track of the time as my thoughts ran wild with thoughts of her, both before and after the insertion, how different she had been.

_ "Hey," I said, brushing my lips against hers in greeting, grabbing her hand in mine._

_ "Hey," she greeted, a smile on her face. "What's up?"_

_ "Eh, normal day," I said, shrugging, as we started walking towards my car so that I could drive her home before going to pick up Tanya from the middle school._

_ "Anything happened at home lately?" she asked. That was a strange thing to ask. She had been at my house for dinner that weekend. Everything was perfectly normal._

_ "No, why?" I asked, starting the car._

_ "Oh, no reason. I just thought that maybe somebody had been acting strangely lately," she said. It was a seemingly harmless statement, but it caused something to click in me. Somebody had been acting strangely lately. Mia had been. For the last couple of days she had been less… confrontational. She never smacked me playfully on the arm or anything. It was weird. I didn't say anything though._

_ "Not that I can think of," I said after a brief pause._

_ "Oh, all right," she said, shrugging her shoulders. She wasn't suspicious of my little lie at all. Usually she would have noticed something like that, not that I ever really lied to her. It was usually just trying to hide some problem that she didn't have to worry about, like a bad grade on a math test._

_ We drove the rest of the way in silence and she hummed along with the radio. In a few minutes we had arrived at her house and I leaned over to give her a quick kiss goodbye. Then I saw it. The sunlight reflected off of her eyes and back into my face. I looked more closely. There was a silver outline around her eyes. I was now completely spooked, but I didn't show it._

_ "What's wrong?" she asked, moving her hand to my cheek. She must have noticed that I looked at her longer than normal._

_ "What? Nothing," I said, grinning at her, probably looking like a fool. "You're just beautiful."_

_ She beamed at me as she hopped out of the car, grabbing her bag as she closed the door. "I love you," she said through the open window._

_ "I love you, too," I said, replying automatically. Then I froze as I watched her walk away. There was a scar on the back of her neck. Something was very wrong._

**Tanya**

I woke up to see Tyler tossing and turning by the entrance to the farmhouse. I was still a notoriously light sleeper and the sound of him moving, along with him muttering under his breath, easily woke me up. Plus it was my turn to go on watch soon anyway, and I always seemed to wake up a few minutes before he was about to come wake me.

I moved past Gabby, who was sleeping quietly next to me, biting her lip as she slept. It must have been a worrisome dream, but I didn't have time to help her. Tyler seemed like he needed me more right now. As I approached him his muttering became clearer. It was just disjointed words, but then he let out a strangled sob. "Mia… eyes… scar… gone," he said, the last word in a whisper, without opening his eyes.

I couldn't stand it. I shook his shoulder and he sat up, immediately alert. He saw me and relaxed. "Are you okay, Ty?" I asked him.

"I'm fine, Tan," he said. I gave him a look. It was the look that said that I knew he was lying to me and that I was going to get it out of him whether he wanted me to or not. He understood. "Alright, so I'm not really fine," he admitted sheepishly, looking down at his hands, which were clenched into fists in his lap.

"I know," I told him simply. I had always been able to read Tyler well, and we were close. We always had been. All four of us were close, but Tyler and I shared something special, closer than a normal sibling bond.

"Of course you do," he said, almost chuckling. I looked at him expectantly. "It's just, I wish I had noticed everything earlier. I wish I could have stopped what was happening before…" he faded off.

"Before they got to Mia?" I asked in a whisper, reaching out for his hand and holding it between my own two smaller ones.

He nodded and a sob broke from my chest. This was the first time that I had seen him cry since we had escaped. And it was bad. I mean, Gabby probably cried herself to sleep every other night. She was just so little. And I had cried a few times, just to get everything out. I had even spotted Carson with tears rolling down his cheeks once during his watch, when I had been unable to sleep. But Tyler had been holding everything together for us, so that we didn't see him break.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't be crying. You need me to be strong for you," he said, trying to wipe away his tears.

"You don't have to be strong for us all the time," I told him. "Sometimes you just need someone to be strong for you."

Tyler nodded and wiped his eyes again. "Thanks, Tan," he whispered.

"No need," I told him. "I'm just doing what needs to be done."

"You've always been good at that," he said, nudging me in the side. I smiled at him and he grinned back.

"Feel better now?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I do," he replied. He almost sounded free, like the crying had lifted a bit of the weight off of his shoulders. He almost sounded like he had before the invasion, when we had all been happy and free. Almost. "I think I'm gonna go to bed now, then," he told me. "You ready for your watch?"

"Always," I said, smiling slightly.

"Alright. You know where I am if there's any trouble," he said. I nodded and listened to him walking back into the farmhouse, the old floorboards squeaking slightly under his feet. I smiled to myself. He still walked as loudly as ever. Some things would just never change.

**Tyler**

I fell asleep quickly after my talk with Tanya and, rather than dreaming of her after she had been changed, my subconscious gifted me with a good memory of Mia, the day that we first met.

_ All week I had been hearing whispered remarks about the new girl filling the halls of our high school, but I had yet to meet her. I walked into Physics in a hurry. I was running a bit late, but luckily our teacher, Mr. Fritzer, wasn't there yet. He was strict and did not approve of tardiness one bit, as I had heard from him many times, not that I _tried_ to be late to his class. It just tended to happen a lot._

_ I sat down in my seat and was just opening my bag when he walked in. He looked around and took a quick attendance before starting class. About five minutes into the lesson, I was really wishing that I could be outside playing soccer or something instead. It was beautiful out. The birds were chirping and the sun was shining, and there weren't any clouds in the sky. I sighed wistfully, but was distracted from my distraction by the sound of the classroom door opening._

_ Then she walked in. I knew that it was her, the new girl, because I had never seen her before in my life. And she was beautiful. She wasn't just hot, or pretty, or mildly cute, she was beautiful. Her long dark hair hung down her back in thick curls and her huge brown eyes looked curiously around the classroom. She had a nice body too, of course, with long legs and curves in all the right places. I was pretty certain that I wasn't the only guy in the class staring at her._

"_Sorry I'm late," she apologized, handing a pass to Mr. Fritzer. "They just changed my schedule again and I couldn't find the classroom." A slight blush spread over her tanned face._

"_Fine, fine," Mr. Fritzer said. "Just don't let it happen again. I start teaching with the bell." She nodded and then bit her lip, looking at all of us in the classroom. "You can sit with Mr. Hillad," he said, pointing towards the empty desk next to me._

_I couldn't believe my luck. She was sitting next to _me! _It was great. She nodded again and walked over before sitting down with obvious relief next to me. She turned and smiled. Her teeth were straight and white. I vaguely wondered if she had had braces, or if they were like that naturally._

"_I'm Tyler," I whispered, not wanting to cause attention to myself from Mr. Fritzer._

"_Mia," she said back. "It's nice to meet you. Being new is tough."_

"_I wouldn't know," I told her, shrugging. "I've lived here my whole life. I could show you around town and the school if you want." The words slipped out before I could stop them. Three minutes after meeting her, I already wanted to get to know her better._

_She beamed. "I'd love to, if it's not too much trouble," she said, nodding happily._

"_No trouble at all," I said, waving her off. "I have soccer practice today after school, but how about I show you around some tomorrow?" I asked. We never had practice on Fridays, and we didn't have another game until Saturday, so I was free._

"_Great," she replied eagerly._

_Then I noticed we were getting some annoyed looks from other students who were actually trying to pay attention. "Cool, we should probably pay attention now, though," I chuckled. She laughed and we both started taking the notes off the board, rushing to catch up._

In the morning I woke with thoughts of Mia in my mind, which wasn't unusual, but it was different today. They were happy, rather than sad, remembering the person that she was, rather than what she had been forced to become.

It was nice to just remember her and not dwell on what had happened to her and everybody else that I had once known. It felt like I could start to honor who she had been, and maybe even start to let her go.

* * *

><p>Okay, so this was very close to being late, just because I completely forgot that it was Saturday and I had to update. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Please keep reading and reviewing!<p>

Ian Lover: Thanks for reviewing again! And yeah, being mad at them was the whole point of that, plus it was to give a bit more of a gauge on their relationship.


	5. Separated

Chapter 4

Separated

**4 months later, outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma**

**Aqua**

I was running for my life. Okay, so it wasn't exactly my life that I was running for, more like my mind, or control of my body, but it doesn't matter really. I was running from the Seekers, everything that I owned on my back, with Kyle and Ian right behind me. They had been finishing packing some of the stuff from their raid into our packs when I had heard the sound of a car.

Apparently, there had been Seekers that were on high alert from recent problems in the area and they had noticed the suspiciously dirty car of my brothers, so they followed it and then them back to our camp as they brought back some of our loot. The rest was in the car.

As soon as we registered what the sound was, we ran into the fields where the Seekers in their high-speed car couldn't follow us without destroying the crops completely. Of course, they didn't want to do that, so they stopped and jumped out. And they had guns, although I was pretty sure that they wouldn't use them.

Anyway, we had been running through the field for a while now, long enough that I was starting to run out of breath. The Seekers were still running, though.

"Ai, you need to run, get away from them," Ian said as we ran.

"I'm not leaving you two!" I exclaimed furiously. How could he even suggest that?

"No, Ai, you promised you'd listen if you were in danger, you promised," Ian argued. I frowned.

"I can't leave you," I insisted.

"You have to," Kyle said. "If you don't we'll stop right now and give ourselves up." He started to slow down.

"No!" I shrieked. "You can't do that. Fine, I'll just roll to the side into the corn up there so that they don't notice immediately," I told them miserably, "but you have to promise me that you'll do your best not to get caught. Make your way back to the car and take it and all the food. I can last on what I have in my bag for a few days until I can get some more."

"Fine," Ian said, "but you have to run and let us lead them away."

"No, is she going to survive?" Kyle asked.

"I can steel another car in the next town. I'm the best at that anyway. And then with a car I'll be able to keep moving like we always have, raiding at towns, even if I have to do it without you," I exclaimed.

The cornfield was coming up now. Soon I'd have to roll away into the tall stalks. "Alright, but try to circle back here. In a week be here again, and if we're not here to meet you then you get as far away from here as you can," Ian said, planning as he ran.

I was gasping for air now. "I promise, as long as you'll do the same."

"We promise," they both said at the same time.

"I love you both," I said with my last breath, tears in my eyes, before I jumped out of their way and rolled to the side, straight into the stalks of corn. A few crumpled beneath me before I got up and worked my way in between them, hiding under their height. There wasn't any corn on them anymore, but the stalks were still sturdy and thick enough to hide me.

Then I heard one of the Seekers. "The girl's gone." It was a woman's voice.

"She must have escaped into the corn," a man's voice said. They were getting farther away. "You go back and look for her, Moon Rising Over the Sea, and the rest of us will keep with the men."

"I'll meet you back at the car," Moon Rising Over the Sea said. Then I heard her footsteps break off from the rest of them and turn back towards me.

I crawled back through the stalks and watched her approach back down the thin trampled path that they had made. I ducked my head back in before she could see me. Then, when she was close enough, I burst out of the stalks and tackled her to the ground. She started reaching her hand to the holster on her hip, but I grabbed her wrist and got there first, taking the gun. Her eyes widened as I held it to her temple, but I wasn't about to actually shoot her.

"Don't shoot, please, have mercy," she said, whimpering. I could see the silver behind her eyes and I understood that she didn't realize how much she disgusted me. That didn't mean that I would kill her though.

I took the gun from her temple and she sighed in relief. Then I hit her—hard—with the barrel. She fell unconscious. I searched her. She had a bottle of water, some extra bullets for the gun, a few energy bars, and an alien first-aid kit, which I figured was how they had such good healing stuff. I took it all and packed it in my pack, taking a few sips of the water. Then I slowly carried her back to her car before jogging in the opposite direction of where Kyle and Ian had run.

As I ran, I felt the tears start to pour from my eyes. "God, keep them safe," I prayed. I wasn't usually a religious person, but it seemed necessary at the moment. I kept jogging until I was too tired to go any farther. I ate and I drank and then I ran again, this time switching between walking and jogging until it was completely dark and I collapsed onto the ground from exhaustion in the middle of another cornfield. I took the Seeker's gun and shoved it into my pocket, making sure that the safety was on so that it couldn't shoot off randomly.

Then I took the blanket from my backpack and pulled it over myself, using the full bag as a pillow. I settled in between the corn stalks for the night, shivering under the stars, and hoping against hope that my brothers would make it through the night alive and with their minds intact.

* * *

><p><strong>3 months later, Kansas<strong>

**Aqua**

Dear Journal,

I've finally given up on keeping all my thoughts to myself. I just can't do it and keep myself sane anymore. In the past week I think that I've said three words out loud, and that was only because I tripped and scraped my knee and was cursing my own stupidity. I haven't seen another human—an actual human, I mean—in three months. It's been a season since I had to leave Ian and Kyle.

I went back to our place a week after I had to leave, like I told them I would, but they weren't there. I assumed that they were either taken or that they managed to escape but couldn't find their way back there in time, or were forced to move in another direction in order to keep the Seekers away from me.

Either way, the only people I've seen since then have been Souls, and even that's rare. I try to avoid having to see them or being seen by them. If I'm seen then I'm dead—or at least as good as dead. I've been staying alive by breaking into their houses and stealing food, filling my canteens, and even occasionally taking some clothes or other necessities if they're gone long enough and they have the right things. I mean things like batteries and flashlights and medicine.

The Soul medicine is like magic, how it heals you. Ever since I got some off that Seeker I've been taking more of it whenever I raid. It's way better than the human stuff and it means that sickness and injuries is one less thing I have to worry about. That's good, too, seeing as I don't have anybody to take care of me if that happens now. I have the gun, too, although I'm not sure whether my aim is any good or not. I don't want to risk shooting it. I don't have many bullets and I don't want to waste them in case I really need them. I tried it once just to make sure I could use it, but I didn't try to aim at anything in particular. I just shot it away from me to see if it would work. It was terrifying, and I hope I never have to shoot it for real.

I moved slowly through the country at first, seeing as I didn't have a car any more, but I managed to steel one in Austin, where it would be easier for the theft to go unnoticed, just because of the larger amount of people and cars. Then I got out of Texas and went north again, following the seasons to where it wouldn't be too warm or too cold. I can't deal with things like that without better supplies or electricity.

My hand's getting sore now, so I'm going to stop writing, but I think this helped me. I didn't write anything important, but this helped to clear my head. I just have to make sure that no Seeker ever finds this, or they'll know way more about me than they can if I want to survive.

Thank you,

Aqua

* * *

><p><strong>8 months later, east Texas, not far from the border<strong>

**Gabby**

Sometimes I felt like I was babied. Okay, I frequently felt like I was babied—especially by Tyler and Tanya. They wanted to keep me safe and I understood that, but that didn't mean that I wanted them to risk their lives for me all the time without me giving anything back. I was ten now, and I was strong for a ten-year-old. I could run a long distance at a good speed with my backpack, I could sneak around more quietly than the rest of them could, and I was smaller and more difficult to find.

Only Carson really understood any of that. He tried to get them to let me go on raids, at least little ones, but they never would, saying that I was too young, too small to carry enough back. That was a stupid reason, in my opinion. Either Carson or Tyler could come with me and they'd be able to carry most of the stuff, but that didn't mean I was useless. I was observant and could scout ahead better than either of them, seeing as I couldn't be seen as easily. I was also quiet. I could creep over squeaky floors without making a sound, whereas Tyler, being much bigger and heavier than me, would wake anyone up with just one step into the house.

I sighed. At least they were letting me take a watch now. I had the time right before dawn because I liked to watch the sunrise. It was still a shorter watch than any of theirs' of course, but there were two hours every morning when I could just sit and think and watch the sunrise. Sometimes it was sad, and I curled up next to Tyler or Carson while I waited, thinking about Mom and Dad. Other times, though, it was peaceful. The birds would start to chirp as they woke up and the rays of the sun would slowly flood over the horizon, filling the air with their golden light.

I sighed and pulled out my sketchbook, colored pencils, and pencil sharpener. They were my favorite possessions. Tyler had managed to get them from some house before my birthday a few months ago.

I looked through some of my drawings. Some of them were of Tyler or Tanya asleep, their brows smooth and relaxed, as they never were during the day. Carson also featured in a couple of them, but he was usually awake, his eyes serious as he set out for a raid, or laughing as he told a story to Tanya.

Then there were the pictures of things, like leaves or flowers or trees. I even had one of a coyote that I had seen one morning during my watch. Thankfully it hadn't taken an interest in me, but I had drawn it as it walked along the fence dividing two unplanted fields. There were a few of the sunset, too, but I didn't really like those. The colors never seemed to come out quite right, quite the way that they were in real life. I wish I had paint. That would probably work better.

I loved drawing. I hadn't even known it until we were on the run, but I really loved it. It was something that I could use to calm down or just take up empty time, which I had a lot of seeing as I wasn't allowed to raid. It also meant that I had gotten pretty good at it, at least in my opinion. I sighed, setting down the supplies. Today wasn't a morning to draw. I just wanted to sit and think and play with the soft summer grass between my fingers as I watched the sun rise over the horizon.

* * *

><p>Yes! New chapter is up! I really hope there are more people than just me celebrating that fact, but anyway... Does anybody listen to Lucinda Williams? If they do, then they might see the reference to one of her songs in the location of the last part of this chapter. I couldn't resist. Anyway, please give me some feedback, predictions, constructive criticism, whatever you want, but reviews are great and I would love to get one from you. ;)<p>

Ian-lover: I know. Poor Tyler, huh? And you'll just have to wait to find out...


	6. Raid

Chapter 5

Raid

**2 weeks later, southern Texas**

**Gabby**

"You're letting me go on a raid?" I asked, open-mouthed in surprise.

"Yes, but I'm going with you and you're going to have to listen to everything that I say," Tyler said forcefully.

I nodded eagerly. I couldn't help but be excited about this, no matter what the terms were. Maybe they were finally going to start treating me as somebody who could actually help, rather than just be cared for and watched over like a helpless kitten.

"This is serious, Gabby. You can't just run off or not tell me what you're doing when we do this, all right? I have to know what you're doing and where you are the whole time," he commanded.

"I know, Ty," I said. "I know it's serious. I know it's important. And I want to be able to help," I said. "I've listened to you all planning these before. I know how they go happen. I know what I'm supposed to do."

"And you're sure that you want to do this?" he asked, kneeling so that he could look me in the eye.

"I'm sure," I said, meeting his gaze with my own.

"Alright. We leave at sunset. Until then, you can rest up a bit and drink some water and eat. You need to be alert and awake for this."

A couple of hours later, the sun was starting to dip below the horizon and I stood from my sleeping bag, which I had been sitting on, to join Tyler. We walked to the car at a fast pace, but slow enough that I could still keep up without straining myself too much. The car was about a mile away, so by the time we reached it, night had fallen completely and the stars and moon were our only source of light.

I hopped into the passenger's seat of the car, and Tyler sat in the driver's seat. He drove in silence for almost two hours until we reached a small neighborhood outside of a big town. There weren't any streetlamps and the houses weren't too close together. It was perfect, but this was where it got more complicated. First, we found a house that had no cars in parked near it and no garage. Tyler parked the next street over and we walked through the backyard.

The back door was unlocked. Souls were so trusting of each other that it made out raids easier, which was a good thing. Tyler sent me to the front to look through the window and keep watch for anybody approaching the house. It was boring. I took out my sketchbook and started to draw what I saw through the window. It had been so long since I had seen civilization—almost two years—everything was interesting, new.

I drew the view through the window, including the actual window, exactly as I saw it. The sky was hard, though. The night sky; it was all bluish-black with little pinpricks of light for stars. No color could properly represent that, so I left everything black and white. I found myself wishing, once more, that I had paints along with my colored pencils. I was so into the drawing that for once I didn't hear Tyler walk up behind me.

"What happened to keeping watch?" he asked, laying his hand on my shoulder.

I jumped and looked up at him guiltily. "Sorry, but I _was_ paying attention to the street. I need to in order to draw it right."

"I know," he said, chuckling. "I was just giving you a hard time." I stuck my tongue out at him. "I picked this neighborhood on purpose to give you an easy first raid, anyway," he said.

"Of course you did," I replied, rolling my eyes.

"We've got to go, though," he reminded me. "We shouldn't stay too much longer. I grabbed some stuff from the fridge and stuff that'll last longer, but I need your help to carry some of it back."

I nodded and stood, stuffing my supplies back into my backpack. "That was a really good drawing, by the way," he said.

I smiled up at him. "Thanks, Ty," I replied. We made our way back to the kitchen, stepping quietly. Tyler gave me four of the lighter bags to carry back to the car while he took the heavier ones. Then we crept back through the backyard again, being careful not to let the weight of the food make our footsteps heavier and louder than they needed to be. I was ahead of Tyler when we reached the other street, so I was the one who noticed the Soul that was looking through a window in one of the houses. "Don't go any farther," I whispered back.

He froze, ducking behind some bush that was planted along the edge of the street. "What?" he hissed.

"There's a Soul looking out a window on the other side of the street," I breathed. "Just let me see if they're gone." I peered around the edge of the bush and saw that the curtains were closed once again. I let out a breath I hadn't realized that I had been holding. "All clear," I told him.

"Thank God," he said. We walked quietly and quickly back to the car now, antsy to get out of there before we were almost seen again. We loaded everything in quickly and Tyler started the car. He drove until we were out of the neighborhood before speaking. "That was a good catch, back there," he told me. I could hear a hint of pride in his voice.

"Thanks," I said, beaming at him.

"Any time, Gabby," he said. "But you're not going on every raid, or even every other one, you know that, right?"

I nodded. "I know, but occasionally, right?" I asked, mimicking his question.

"Yes, occasionally," he said, chuckling.

"Good."

* * *

><p><strong>2 months later, Illinois<strong>

**Aqua**

Dear Journal,

I hate this. I seriously, completely, and utterly, fucking hate this. I've been on my own for a little more than a year now, and all I know about what happened to Ian and Kyle is that they haven't been able to find me and I haven't been able to find them. That's a good thing if they were taken, and I'm starting to think that they weren't. I mean, if they were, surely they would have wanted posters with my name and face in every town and city all across the country, wouldn't they? If they knew anything about me and had any hints of my whereabouts. Either way, I don't think they've been taken. I think that we're probably just separated for a long time, if not forever. I just don't want them to be gone. And I don't want to disappear myself.

I just wish that if they're still out there somewhere that we could find each other again. I haven't had a conversation with anybody for more than a year! I'm going to go insane if I can never speak to another person ever again. I'd have to kill myself. The loneliness never ends. I can't stop looking over my shoulder, even when I'm miles away from any civilization. I can't help but be worried that the Seekers are going to find me eventually, or that I'll die some other way before that and my body will just sit where I died and rot until there's nothing left.

It's all so gruesome and I'd rather not think about, but I just can't keep the thoughts from running through my mind. That's all I can think about. The two topics of my thoughts are survival and different ways that I could die any day. One of those is shooting myself in the head. I don't think I'd do that unless a Seeker actually found me, though. I'd rather be dead than gone. At least if I'm dead I might go to the afterlife or something, rather than just disappearing like I had never existed, my body being used for things that I don't it to be used for, my mind taken over by the parasite. No, death is by far preferable to that.

I've been too far north for too long now. It's cold again. Winter. I don't want to go back south though, back to where I lost them. I might head farther west first, towards California and sunshine. It's better than the cold and gloom that I face up here. I sleep in the car just so that I don't freeze outside, but it's still cold, so very cold. While I drive the heat's up all the way, but my bones are still chilled and I can't help but shiver sometimes. I need the sun and warm, or even some rain rather than constant wind and the occasional blizzard. Yes, it's time to head south and west again. Maybe I'll go into the desert, although that might be even more of a death wish. Either way, it's after dawn now, the sun is up, and I need to start moving out for a raid. I need to get more supplies. I'm running low on everything and I could use a coat if I can steel one. I hope I get lucky at the next house.

You're the only way I can get my head even a little bit clear, Journal. If I didn't have you I don't know if I would still be alive, still be able to think. You're the only thing—and yes, I know that you're just a thing—that I can use to get everything out of my head. I feel like I'm an old shut-in who lives alone and never leaves her house or has company over, even though I'm not even eighteen yet.

Thank you,

Aqua

* * *

><p><strong>4 months later, Washington State<strong>

**Ian**

"Ian, we shouldn't stay this close to home for too long," Kyle said.

"Since when are you the smart one," I snorted. I knew that perfectly well I just couldn't help but hope that Aqua would make her way back here eventually, that we could meet up with her, that we could be a whole family again.

Unfortunately, Kyle seemed to be able to read my thoughts with extreme accuracy today. "I know you're hoping that Ai will show up here, but she's too smart to do that, to come this close to home, where she could run into Mom and Dad," he said.

I knew that too, I just couldn't help but hope that she'd come anyway, for the same reason that we had. "I know, but just think about her out there, Kyle. She's alone. She has nobody else there to protect her, to keep her sane. We don't even know whether or not she escaped."

"We can be pretty sure that she escaped," Kyle said. "We did find that Seeker with her head all bloodied up when we circled back to get away and get back to the car."

"Okay, so she wasn't taken then, but we can't be sure that she hasn't been taken since then," I said. He couldn't argue with that.

"She's smart, Ian. I'm pretty sure she's still out there." Damn. I forgot that this was _Kyle_ was arguing with. He could make up an argument out of the blue against anything, well, unless the other person was Jodi, not that she could exactly help me anymore, let along do anything else. Now I was just depressing myself.

"Fine, Kyle," I sighed. "It just seems like you don't even care about finding her again, that's all. You haven't really been that helpful, you haven't offered any suggestions."

That got to him. He stood, anger blazing in his eyes. "Don't you ever say that I don't care about our sister again," he said in a deadly voice. "I want to find her—of course I do. I just don't think waiting around here is going to do that! We have to find somewhere that we can stay for a long time without the possibility of getting caught. And then she has to find the same place."

"Unfortunately, places like that don't exactly exist anymore," I reminded him.

The blaze in his eyes died. "I know," he said.

We sat in silence and then I stood and started packing our stuff up. "What are you doing?" Kyle asked me, confused at my behavior, which was so different than it had been the last few months. I had begun losing hope. Today, though, my movements were sharp and fast again, like I had been snapped out of a haze.

"Packing," I answered curtly. "You wanted to move. I agree. We've been here too long." He stood and joined me, muttering under his breath.

"I don't see why everyone thinks you're the smart one. You're the one that gets you're emotions to run you over. I just don't get it…"

I smiled quietly to myself. We might not have Ai anymore, but at least we had each other, and that was more than most people had right now. At least we had something—someone—to hold onto, to keep us sane, to keep us in our right minds… Not that that meant that we didn't want to kill each other on some days, of course.

* * *

><p>I'm really sorry I didn't post yesterday, but we had a late Passover Seder and I was running around like a nut all day trying to get things ready. I didn't have any time to post, but it was written, if that's any comfort. Anyway, I hope you liked it. Please review, they make my day.<p>

Next one will be up next Saturday, and I should have plenty of time to write this week because it's Spring Break, as long as I get to take my computer with me, that is.


	7. Taken

Chapter 6

Taken

**Two months later, eastern Colorado**

**Tyler**

I was extremely tense. This raid was a risky one. Risky, but necessary. If we hadn't gone out in the next few days we would have quickly run out of food, even if we were careful. The good thing was that miles of farmland—acres and acres of it, surrounded this house. There wasn't even a town nearby. The difficult part was the fact that we didn't know how long the Souls had been gone or when they were returning. And unlike most houses that we broke into, this one also had a locked door.

I could pick locks, of course, but the fact that they even _were_ locked made me suspicious. The Souls had no reason to lock their doors. I sighed and focused on watching out the front window for any cars while Carson filled our bags with food. Usually I would be the one filling the bags, but I was being more careful than usual today because of the challenging circumstances and I was better at watching. Carson tended to get distracted.

I sighed as nothing continued to happen. There were no headlights, no sounds of car wheels on the asphalt driveway, and no hint of any action, other then Carson quietly moving through the kitchen, filling bags with the sustenance that we so desperately needed.

I heard him open a cabinet door—perfectly normal. Then I heard something that was as far from normal as possible: a shout. It wasn't Carson who shouted either. It was somebody else. And seeing as we were the only two who had gone on this raid that meant that they were back. They were back, and we were dead. I rushed to the door to the kitchen and saw that Carson was being held at gunpoint by one of the parasites. No. It was worse than I thought. The only ones that were violent, the only ones who had guns, were Seekers. This was a Seeker's house, and the alien that was holding my brother was a Seeker.

The only positives were that it was facing away from me, talking on its phone, and that it was alone.

I met Carson's eyes. They were filled with fear, filled with terror, but he looked unwaveringly at me. Then he looked towards two large bags of food right near the door. Then he looked at me again. _Take the food and go. Go back to the girls and get away. There's nothing you can do,_ he mouthed silently.

With a last tortured look into his eyes I nodded firmly. _I'm sorry,_ I mouthed to him. He shook his head just ever so slightly and I understood the meaning. It wasn't my fault. At least, he didn't think so. That didn't change the fact that I would blame myself for it. I silently grabbed the bags and then crept through the house as quickly as I dared, trying to make as little noise as possible. Then the door was open, and I was running. I was running back to the van, back to my sisters, away from the death of my younger brother's mind, and away from the perilous place that could lose me my own life if I stayed there any longer. I ran away.

* * *

><p><strong>Carson<strong>

As soon as Tyler was out of the doorway, I started to struggle, trying to distract the Seeker that was holding me so tightly, its gun pressed to my temple even as I attempted to maneuver away from it. There was no stopping it, though. It had a firm grip on my arm, and if I tried to twist away then the joint was going pop out of place. Then there was the gun, of course.

It was a pistol and the safety was off. And I really would rather the thing just shoot me than to have one of those bugs stuck into my head. That wasn't going to happen, though. They'd put a Seeker in me and try to find the rest of them. I would just have to resist. I only had to give Tyler and Tanya and Gabby enough time to get away, to move on. I would protect them for as long as I could, but eventually I just wasn't going to have control anymore, when I wasn't going to be me anymore.

I attempted to pull away again, but the Seeker was getting aggravated. It shoved me against the table and my breath was pushed out of me as my stomach hit the edge. I tried kicking out, but it just dodged out of the way and pushed me down more firmly, holding the gun to the base of my skull so that it pressed hard into the flesh there.

The sound of sirens filled the night air and I hoped that Tyler was far enough away, that he had was at the van, or in the middle of a field somewhere, laying low for a few hours. The front door opened and closed and I listened to the slapping of boots against the ground. Then there was quick murmured discussion between the two Seekers.

One of them, the new one, took out a small white bottle with an aerosol sprayer on top. He pressed it once and the smell of apples filled the air. I took a deep breath and then I was gone. It all went black as I drifted into unconsciousness.

* * *

><p><strong>Tyler<strong>

It took me three hours, laden down with food, to reach the van where it was hidden under in a shallow ditch, covered with brush, along the side of a tiny dirt road. As I uncovered the van, pushing the branches and cornhusks and whatever else off of it, I let my mind stray for the first time.

Carson. Carson was gone. Worse than that, I _let_ him go. I just left him there with the Seeker to escape, to save my own neck while he had a bug implanted in his.

Then the more rational side of my brain spoke up. _You left to get the food back to the girls, to keep them safe and to get away so that whatever's going to be in Carson wouldn't be able to find any of you._ I knew it was true, too, but that didn't make it any easier to remember. Remembering that last look he gave me, how brave he had been even with the gun against his head, made me feel inferior.

I was—we had been—doing the best I could for the girls, but sometimes it just wasn't enough. There were still nights where we went to bed cold or with our stomachs nowhere near satisfied, times where there wasn't a band-aid for the latest scratch, or anywhere to sleep other than the seats in the car. We were never going to be a normal family again, and I knew that, but now we were going from four to three, and there was no way that our fourth was coming back as the same person, no way in hell.

With a last mental goodbye, I finished cleaning off the car and loaded the food into the back seat, making sure that nothing was going to fall over during the bumpy ride. I moved mechanically, no thought necessary, as I buckled my seatbelt and started the engine, feet pressing down on the pedals as I maneuvered the van farther down the ditch where it was easier to get back up to the road.

I pulled back onto the street and sped up, but stayed under the speed limit. The Souls didn't speed—it was against the law—so if I sped on the streets it would only bring attention to myself.

Quickly, I lost myself in the lull of driving through the flat landscape and within a few hours I was near where the girls were waiting. The usually angst of a return, hoping that they were still there, filled me, along with the sadness of Carson. The next few days were going to be rough, too, as we fled Colorado and moved on, trying to get as far from here as we could before Carson's body was taken over and sent to try and capture us.

Ten minutes later, I found the thicket of trees where we were hiding out. There was an old abandoned shack in the middle of the trees, with a roof that was about to fall in. It was in a very small clearing that was surrounded by tightly packed trees and shrubs that made it almost invisible from the outside. At the edge of the clearing there were even some old blackberry bushes, which had supplied some berries for a meal or two when we had first arrived.

I parked at the edge of the road, knowing that we would be leaving soon anyway, and got out of the car. I took a deep breath before I entered the trees, winding between the trunks and over roots like a seasoned rock climber navigates a sheer wall of stone. Another ten minutes, and I was at the clearing, squeezing between the only two trees that were far enough apart to let me in.

Tanya was outside the shack, sitting by the door. Gabby must have been asleep inside, tossing and turning as she always did when we weren't all in one place. "Thank God you're back," Tanya gasped as she ran towards me, wrapping her arms around my middle. At fifteen, she didn't do this very often anymore, but right now I was glad she did. I needed it.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me, looking at the shack over her shoulders. "Yeah, I'm back," I whispered.

She pulled back, hearing some emotion in my voice that I hadn't meant to put there. "What happened? Where's Carson? What do you mean that only you're back? Is Carson…" she paused, putting everything together. Then she let out a choked sob and covered her mouth with her hands. "He's gone, isn't he? They took him."

I nodded wordlessly and attempted to pull her back, comfort her, but she—Tanya, who I had always been closest to—pulled away from me, looking at me with tears in her eyes. "How could you leave him with them? How could you do that? You're supposed to protect us, make sure that none of us are taken. You're the oldest! That's your job!"

She was speaking loudly now, and I was worried that she would be heard, although as far as I knew, we were the only people in this small section of woods. She was bringing up things that I had thought myself, things that I didn't want to dwell on.

"How could you have let this happen?" she asked in a hushed voice, tears finally starting to leak from her eyes.

"I tried. I tried so hard," I told her, my voice cracking.

"What happened?" she asked.

I let out a breath of air and went to sit against the edge of the shack. Tanya sat down next to me, curling into my side the way that Gabby did, the way that she had when she was younger.

"I was keeping watch and he was raiding the kitchen. We went in through the front, so I kept watch up there. We didn't even hear the car coming. It must have been almost silent. It went around the back, and I didn't hear the door open. Then I heard a shout, and it wasn't Carson's. I rushed towards the kitchen and saw one of the things—a Seeker—holding Carson with a gun to his head. He was facing away from me though, and didn't see me. Carson did, though. He mouthed to me—told me to run, to grab the food and run." I took a deep, shuddering breath. "So I did. I just left him there to have a-a thing put into his head. God, I'm a terrible brother.

"You're not a terrible brother." It wasn't Tanya who said it, though.

We both looked up. Gabby was standing there, in her pajamas, holding her sketchbook and a pencil.

"How much did you hear?" Tanya asked. It really wasn't even worth asking. She had heard everything. She knew everything. The sadness in her eyes, the tears on her cheeks, the whisper of her voice all pointed to one thing. That she had heard everything that we had said.

"Everything. I-I couldn't sleep, so I got up and saw you sitting here and I started to draw you. And you're not a terrible brother at all. You're a really good brother. You take really good care of us," she said earnestly to me, coming to sit against my other side and rest her cheek on my arm. I wrapped it around her.

"I left him there," was all I managed to get out.

"He told you to," Gabby said. "And I wish you could've saved him, but you might not have been able to and then none of us would be safe, instead of three of us. And Carson wouldn't have wanted that."

"When did you get so wise?" I asked her, squeezing her side.

"It's just common sense, not wisdom. And I knew him best. I know what he would have wanted," she finished in a whisper.

The three of us sat in silence for a few minutes before any of us spoke again. "We should get moving," Tanya finally said. "If he's been… taken, they'll be trying to find out about the rest of us, about where we are."

I sighed. "The food's already in the car, along with my stuff. Let's go and pack everything up. We'll head south."

"New Mexico. Alright, sounds good," Tanya said, ducking out from under my arm and standing up. She reached down, offering Gabby a hand and she stood up, too. They went into the shack and I stood up too, following them inside for the last time.

* * *

><p>Alright, I have a perfectly valid excuse for why I did not update on time. I was on vacation. I was on vacation and my <em>younger brother<em> was allowed to bring his computer and I wasn't allowed to bring mine because he wanted to be able to _use his minecraft mod._ I know, that's ridiculous. And, of course, the document wasn't on google docs like most of mine are, it was on my computer, so I couldn't update until today. Anyway, my deepest apologies for forgetting to upload it to google docs, but its not completely my fault.

Anyway, I hope you liked (at least the writing of) this somewhat depressing chapter.

Thanks for reading. Please review. I really do appreciate it.


	8. Found

Chapter 7

Found

**5 Months Later, Ohio**

**Aqua**

It's been almost two years since I have spoken with another human, almost two weeks since I have used my voice at all.

I took a turn onto a less-traveled road, eyes on the street, occasionally flicking to the speedometer in order to check that I'm not going over the speed limit, which will surely get me into trouble. I've been careful of that when I'm driving, not breaking traffic laws, that is.

I sighed and took a quick look out the windows. Ohio was boring and hilly. That was really all there was to say about it. There weren't too many people around either, which was always a plus when you were on the run. Either way, my attention was drifting when I saw something on the side of the road. Rather than the usually green or brown, this was golden. Against my better instincts, I stopped the car and got out, checking for other cars on the road.

Nobody. I was alone, as usual. I stepped over to the edge of the road and gasped. It was a dog, a golden retriever, either dead or unconscious. Its side was matted with blood and it was too skinny, its fur tangled and dirty. It was probably a stray. I felt bad for it. I knelt next to its head and touched its nose, which was still wet. Then I felt a weak breath on my hand. It was still alive!

I had two options here. One, I could leave it on the side of the street, unconscious, likely to die if nobody else found it. Two, I could take it with me, at least for a while, and nurse it back to help. I didn't particularly like the first idea, so my mind was made up. Despite the fact that a dog would definitely just make my life more difficult, I was going to take it. It wasn't going to die because of me. I was determined.

I was going to have to deal with its injury first, though. If I tried to move it, I might just rip its side open further than it already was. I was stymied. I had the alien medicine, of course, but I wasn't sure if that would even work on dogs. It might be designed specifically for humans, for our DNA. Dogs were mammals, though, too, so maybe it would work…

Well, it was worth a shot, at least. It wouldn't make anything worse. And at the least I could clean the wound so that it wouldn't get infected and then spray that stuff that stopped the bleeding, Clot, or whatever it was. Then I could wrap it and let it heal on its own, if the other stuff didn't work. I sighed and left the dog for a second, going to the trunk of my car. I found the first aid kit and a half empty bottle of water and set to work.

First, I moved the dog's leg so that I could see the wound.

I winced. It was bad. The fur was full of blood and the edges of the cut were ragged and it stretched from its ribs to above its back leg. I grabbed my knife and cut away the fur around the cut, as close to the skin as I could without cutting the poor thing up even more. Then I took the water and rinsed away the blood and dirt from the cut so that I could see it. I relaxed slightly when I saw that it wasn't too deep. That would make everything easier, and would use up less of my medicine. I considered the No Pain, but as the dog was already unconscious I didn't think it would make that much of a difference, so I grabbed the Clean and sprayed it on the cut.

The dirt and mud seemed to disintegrate as it worked its magic, but I waited a minute to make sure that it was done before taking out the Heal. I squeezed some onto my finger and put it into the cut, careful to use only enough cover the edges. I waited, holding my breath, for it to start working. At first, nothing happened. Then, the flesh started to knit itself back together and I released the air, grinning with my relief. I took the last thing, Seal, and used it to seal the edges of the cut together as neatly as I could. It was going to scar, but hopefully only a thin line, and it was the best that I could do with what I had.

I sat back, putting lids back onto the containers and stowing them back in my first aid kit. Then I took out a roll of bandage and wrapped the wound, ensuring that it wouldn't split open until it was fully healed. I put the kit back into my car and then opened the door to the back seat and laid an old blanket out on the seat. Finally, I turned back to the dog, crouching beside her again. I was pretty sure it was female, but I wasn't an expert, so I couldn't be sure, especially when I was focusing on fixing her up.

I slid my arms underneath her and picked her up. She was much lighter than she should have been, probably malnourished, and I could feel her ribs under her fur. Within minutes, she was laid out in the back of my car and I saw her foot twitch.

I stopped moving immediately, not wanting to spook her if she woke up. Her nose twitched next, then an eyelid. The tip of her tail flicked and then, very slowly, her eyes opened and flicked to me. She whined quietly and tried to shy away, only to whimper as she twisted still healing side.

"Hey, it's alright," I whispered, trying to sooth her. She whimpered again and I put my hand on her back, stroking her fur as gently as I could. "It's alright. You're safe now. I fixed up your side, but you need to rest."

She settled down again, still watching me carefully. I grabbed something from the bag of food and looked at it. Beef jerky, perfect. I opened the bag and ripped a little piece off, holding it out to her. She sniffed warily before taking it and eating it quickly. I gave her another little piece and she took it immediately. Then she gave me an expectant look, asking for more.

I smiled widely, trying to remember the last time that I had before today. It must have been with Ian and Kyle. It had been almost two years since I had last smiled.

* * *

><p><strong>1 Month Later, Arizona<strong>

**Ian**

"This was a stupid idea, Kyle. Why the hell did I let you talk me into this?" I hissed to my idiot of a brother.

"Because it was stupid enough that it just might work. And anyway, the worms don't get suspicious of anything. They don't lie, so they assume that nobody is lying to them," Kyle said.

I nodded. That was true. Either way, I wished that we had just got around our usual way of raiding, rather than this... method, if it could even be called that. Actually walking into a store with the very things that wanted you to become one of them didn't really seem all that smart or logical to me, which yet again brought up the question of why I had actually agreed to it.

I sighed and grabbed a box of Oreos off the shelf. _Oreos._ It had been so long since I had had them last. That was the plus to this adventure, I suppose. At least we could grab whatever we wanted to, as long as it would last a while. We could probably even get some perishables and ice and use the cooler so that it would keep for a couple of days at least. As I imagined the benefits of this trip, I completely forgot to be alert for the things that could be our downfall.

Then I felt something cold on the back of my neck. It was circular and felt like metal, a gun barrel. We were goners. My eyes flicked towards Kyle, on my left. He had a knife to his throat and for once he was being smart and actually staying still.

The man with the gun to my neck moved the barrel to my temple and moved around so that I could see him. He didn't look like a normal Seeker. He had white hair and a long white beard, like Santa Clause, except that it was tangled and messy. He was smaller than I was, but strong, not to mention the fact that he had a gun to my head, a shotgun.

Strange, they usually carried a handgun, something smaller, not shotguns. I glared at him. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said.

My gaze flicked to Kyle again. He was reaching towards a shelf, looking for something, anything. He froze in place.

I met my captor's gaze again. Then I noticed something. There were no silver circles around his eyes; they were just a clear bright blue. "You're human!" I exclaimed without thinking.

"What are you talking, about Ian? They've got a gun and knife on us! They're obviously Seekers!"

"Why would a Seeker have a gun or knife on you?" the one holding Kyle sneered. "You're just like them, you filthy parasites!"

"No we're not! We're human, like you! Look at my eyes! They're not silver, they don't reflect back. I don't have a scar either," I said quickly.

"Well, no harm to looking," my captor said.

"Jeb! Are you crazy? They're obviously trying to fool us!" the other one groaned.

"I might very well be crazy, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't look," Jeb retorted. He pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket, flipped it on, and shined it directly into my eyes. Nothing reflected back at him.

Then he felt around the back of my neck. There wasn't a scar there. I knew that. No scar, no eyes. I had probably passed the test, right?

"He's clean," Jeb declared. "He's human. What's your name, boy?"

"Ian. I'm Ian. And that's Kyle, my brother," I said quickly.

"You got last names?" he grunted, shining the light into Kyle's eyes before checking his neck the same way that he had to me.

"O'Shea," I answered. He put the flashlight back in his pocket.

"Well, Ian and Kyle O'Shea. I'm Jebediah Stryder, but everybody calls me Jeb. This here is Andy. We were just gonna pick up some food here before moving on back home if you want to help us finish," he offered.

I looked at Kyle. He shrugged, saying that it was up to me. I thought for a second. "Where's home?" I asked.

"In the desert. Got some caves. There are more of us there," he answered.

"Jeb, you don't have to tell them—" Andy groaned, interrupting him.

"I can tell them whatever I want. It's my place, so it's my decision. And they're human. They're not gonna sell us out to the Seekers or something," Jeb said.

"There are more of you?" Kyle asked.

"Yep, about twenty of us right now. More know where it is, or can figure it out if they're still human. You're the second or third group we've found while raiding."

"Third," Andy said.

"Yeah, anyway, what do you say? I think this is the last stop on this raid, so we could be back at the caves in a day and a half, at the most," he offered again.

"We're in," I said.

"Good. We could use some more strong guys like the two of you. There's a lot of work to do, but not enough of us to do it all. Let's go. We've got a car waiting outside."

"We've got one too. Do you want us to follow you, or should we just leave it?" I asked.

"Nah. We could always use another car. Andy can drive ours and I'll drive yours so that we can all definitely get there. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," I replied. And it did. It sounded really good. Even if it was caves, any home sounded good after three years without one, other than a car. I met Kyle's eyes and he grinned at me. I almost laughed.

* * *

><p>Alright! I'm updating on time for the first time in three weeks! Anyway, I thought you might like a little insight about Ian and Kyle here, although the scene is kind of short. I hope you liked the chapter and I'll have another one up next Saturday. Until then I have to catch up on my writing I'm getting a little behind.<p>

Keep reading and reviewing!


	9. Meeting

Chapter 8

Meeting

**6 Months Later, Western Tennessee**

**Aqua**

I let out a loud whistle. "Damsel!" I called. I had to be careful. I couldn't call too loudly or there was a chance that somebody would hear me, but I had to be loud enough for her to hear me.

I stood for a minute before I saw the golden spot coming through the tall grasses that covered the mountainous terrain. Within another minute, Damsel was sitting by my side, her tail wagging emphatically and her mouth hanging open as she panted. "Good girl," I said, rubbing the top of her head with the palm of my hand, enjoying the feeling of her soft fur.

Then she stood again and walked a little ways forward. Then she looked back at me, as if she wanted me to follow her. She was incredibly intelligent for a dog, and usually figured out what I needed. Right now, that was shelter. My car was parked a mile or so away in the parking lot at a hiking trailhead, where it wouldn't be suspicious, but I needed somewhere else to stay.

I grinned at her and checked to make sure I had everything I needed in case of trouble. Two full bottles of water, and one half-full one, a meal or two worth of food, a change of clothes, medicines and first-aid supplies, my knife, and my gun, were all with ther and accounted for. Perfect.

"Alright, lead the way, girl," I said, waving her forward. She walked about fifty yards ahead of me and then stopped to make sure I was still behind her. The same thing continued for the next ten minutes or so until I saw a hole in the side of the mountain. Maybe it was a cave.

Then I heard footsteps. Shit. There were Seekers here, probably waiting for some unsuspecting human to attempt to make it their home. The footsteps were coming from ahead of me.

I turned the other way and ran right into another one—literally. It was a man. He looked—or his host looked—like he was just a year or two older than me, but he was as tall as Ian and Kyle were. I stopped my mind from going there, as it would only distract me. I turned to dodge around him, but he was faster than I had expected, reaching out to grab my arm before I could escape. He wrapped one arm around my neck and the other around my waist, holding me there, captive, unable to move from his grasp, even to wiggle an arm out.

"Tanya, I got her," he called out. I bit at the fingers than were around my neck, desperate. Then there was something cold at my neck, cold and sharp. It was a knife. "If you move, it will be the last thing you ever do, parasite," he hissed. Why wasn't Damsel attacking him? Biting him? Something? She was extremely loyal, so why wasn't she helping me? There was something off about this Seeker, but I wasn't sure what it was yet.

I was so busy trying to work out a way to escape this situation that I didn't even register that he had called me a parasite. "You'll never turn me into one of you," I spat as a girl walked into my view, holding a flashlight. I struggled harder to reach the small gun that I had concealed at my waist.

The girl approached me and shined the flashlight into my eyes. There was no reflection, of course. "She's human," she whispered, dropping the flashlight in surprise. It must have been her first mission to be so shocked at finding a human. Her host was on the young side, younger than me, at least.

I took my opportunity as the man's—or I should say parasite's—grip on me relaxed, springing away from him and putting the girl into a headlock. Then I pulled out my gun and pressed it against her temple. She gasped and froze in my grip. Smart girl.

"If you move, she dies," I told the man. He had been moving towards me, like he wanted to wrestle her away from me. The tone of my voice left him in no doubt that I would do it, so he stopped immediately.

"Wait," he said, almost begging. There was something about him that made me do it. I don't know what, though. Maybe it was the pleading in his voice and eyes, maybe it was the fact that I was certain he did not want this girl hurt, but I allowed him to reach into his pocket and pull something out. It was a small flashlight; similar to the one the girl had been carrying before she had dropped it.

My finger tightened on the trigger of the gun as he straightened up again. Maybe it wasn't really a flashlight, after all. "NO!" he shouted. "Don't shoot her! Look!" He shined the light into his eyes, and I stopped at the desperation that I saw there. Then I froze at my realization. There was no reflection cast back at me. No glint of silver was hidden behind his bright hazel irises.

"You're human," I said. I released the girl immediately, and dropped the gun, kicking it away from me, disgusted with myself. I sat on the ground and threw down my pack with a thump. "I won't blame you if you want to kill me for that," I told them both.

"Why would we want to kill you?" the man asked.

"I just attacked her with no provocation!" I exclaimed. "You were letting me go and I attacked without thinking!"

The girl shrugged. "I would have done the same thing. Anybody would have," she told me. "We're not going to kill you for that. You haven't done anything wrong. And you're the only human that we've seen other than the three of us for months," she finished.

"Three of you?" I asked. As far as I knew, there were only the two of them.

"Yeah, we sent Gabby in to hide. I'll go get her," the man said.

There was a short awkward silence between the slightly younger girl and me. Then I realized I hadn't introduced myself yet. "I'm Aqua," I told her. "Aqua O'Shea. I'm eighteen and I haven't spoken to another human in almost two years."

"Well, you're in luck then," the girl said, smiling. "I'm Tanya, Tanya Hillad. I'm sixteen."

The man came back then, although I suppose he wasn't much older than me. He had another girl with him, a younger girl. I assumed that she was Gabby. "I'm Tyler," he said. "I'm twenty and they're my younger sisters."

The younger girl looked up at me, and then, seeing that my eyes were clear, decided that she would immediately trust me. She squished herself in between Tyler and me and spoke. "I'm Gabby. Well, Gabrielle really, and I'm only eleven, and I hope that you stay with us, because Carson was taken and it's better with four people," she told me, with a huge amount of hope in her voice.

"Carson's our brother, but he was taken on a raid about six months ago," Tanya explained sadly. "Tyler only just made it back and we had to move. We didn't even have a chance to wait. We had to leave before the Seekers had a chance of trying to find us."

I nodded and turned to talk directly to Gabby. "As long as you'll have me, I'm not going anywhere," I told her.

"Well, you're obviously handy to get away from me, and you heard Tanya coming before you saw her, so I don't see that you'd be a nuisance or anything," Tyler said critically.

I was somewhat offended. "I've been surviving on my own for almost two years, ever since I got separated from my brothers. I can raid, I can steal cars, I can use a knife, and I can shoot a gun with pretty good accuracy. Plus I've got food, water, and supplies that I would happily use to supplement yours. And I have a dog, but if you don't want me, I'll leave," I told him spitefully, standing up.

He looked shocked. He probably wasn't used to being questioned, being the only one there to care for his younger sisters. "Woah, I'm sorry," he said, raising his hands as he stood, too. "I'm just used to being overly critical, having to over think everything in order for us to stay alive. I'm sorry. I trust you and I'm sure you'll be a useful addition to our group and we'll be happy to have you," he said sincerely.

I let out a breath and sat down again. Gabby latched herself onto my arm. I smiled at her. "And I'm happy to be here," I said.

He gave me the first inkling of a smile, the corners of his mouth twitching up, and I smiled back at him, a strange fluttering filling my stomach.

"Did you say you have a dog?" Tanya asked, grinning widely.

"Yeah, one second," I said, letting out a quiet whistle.

Damsel appeared in no time, coming over the side of a hill. "Hey, Damsel," I greeted her, rubbing her head affectionately. "I found new people for us. Or, I guess you did, didn't you? And you knew they were people, too."

Tanya stood up and came over to rub Damsel's back. Her tail wagged faster, smacking against my legs. Gabby stood up too and sat right in front of Damsel, just grinning at her.

"What do you feed her?" Tyler asked me.

"Scraps mostly. She hunts a bit, too, birds and squirrels and the like. She can mostly take care of herself, and she knows not to go to the bathroom in camp. She's smart," I said.

"Let's leave her with the girls for a minutes. Come on, we can compare supplies," he said, gesturing to my discarded pack.

I reached for it, but Tyler beat me to it, lifting it as easily as if it was full of feathers—which it most definitely was not. I followed him into the cave, thankful to finally be able to walk somewhere without constantly looking over my shoulder, with other people to talk to and see. It restored my faith in humanity, showed me that we were still there, still surviving, still alive.

* * *

><p><strong>2 Days Later<strong>

**Aqua**

It was strange to be around people again. For so long I had been on my own, and now there were suddenly other voices speaking, other hearts beating, other lungs breathing. It was strange, almost forgotten. That was really the only way to describe it.

I didn't have to do anything alone now. I would always have somebody to help me, somebody that I could trust at my back. I hadn't adjusted to it yet, to these feeling that, once so familiar and normal, now felt alien to me.

Tyler and Tanya and Gabby weren't exactly normal either, though. Being on the run for three years could do that to you, but they were better off than I was. They didn't jump at every crack of a twig or cough or footstep. They weren't like Ian and Kyle either. They didn't joke around much, they didn't get into stupid arguments over nothing, they didn't manage to get me really pissed off at them.

Gabby was the sweetest girl. At eleven, she still seemed innocent, although she had been living in the wild for more than a quarter of her life. She didn't seem as though it had made her harsher or calculating like it had the other two. She had shown me some of her drawings, too, that first night that I had arrived. They were beautiful, a lot better than anything that I could ever have done. She had a talent, and I wished that we had our world back so that the rest of the world could know it the way that I did.

Tanya was definitely the thinker. She was the most calculating of the three of them, the most careful to trust me at first. She had accepted me quickly enough, but I wasn't sure that she really trusted me to watch her back yet. I couldn't really fault her for that though. I had held a gun to her head at our first meeting, after all. She was sixteen, only two years younger than I was, helping to take care of Gabby. She was so mature, even though she would probably never get a chance to show it. She would miss all of these things that so many girls her age would care about if the world still belonged to us. I didn't think that she would care if she never kissed a boy or had a boyfriend or went to Prom, not that I did either.

Then there was Tyler. He was quieter than either of the two girls, but he was the oldest, and therefore the leader. I hadn't interacted with him much, not like I had with Gabby, and Tanya was at least trying to get to know me. I couldn't help but feel like there was something about him that made me trust him more than either of the girls, though, even if I knew only the bare minimum about him. He was a mystery, and he was a mystery that I wanted to figure out.

I heard footsteps on the loose rock in the entrance to the cave, a few feet away from me. I turned. Tyler was standing there, just looking out across the mountain. When he spoke, I almost jumped. "I don't know what's happening, but somebody's obviously on our side out there," he whispered, probably so as not to wake the girls.

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.

"I mean…" he paused. "Well, something has to be in control of this, right? God or Buddha or whoever… and they've got to be somewhat sympathetic for us to have lasted this long, to have let us meet you."

I felt my cheeks heating. Was I _blushing?_ I did not blush, even before the end of the world. "I guess so. I've never really thought about."

We were both silent for a minute. "The girls both like you," he said quietly.

"Really? I didn't think Tanya was all that fond of me…"

He chuckled slightly. It was a deep throaty chuckle. "She's like that with everybody at first. She'll loosen up once she gets to know you better," he explained.

"I see." There was an awkward silence. "And what about you? What do you think of me?" I asked him, not really expecting an answer.

After a few minutes, I let out a sigh. He wasn't going to answer. I didn't even know why I cared so much, but for some reason, I did. I stood up to go back into the cave. It was his turn to keep watch anyway.

As I entered the cave, I heard him say, very quietly, "I don't know what I think of you yet." I wasn't even certain that I was supposed to have heard him.

* * *

><p>Alright, and as several of you have predicted, although it was pretty obvious, they have finally met! And yes, the dog's name is Damsel, because she was kind of a Damsel in Distress. Please keep reading and reviewing! They mean the world to me! I hope you enjoyed the chapter.<p>

Ian lover: Yep, he certainly found them. And I hadn't actually heard they were done filming! That's awesome, though. Thanks for the news. I hope you liked the chapter.


	10. Vulnerability

Chapter 9

Vulnerability

**3 Weeks Later, Kentucky**

**Tyler**

It had been a little over three weeks since she had arrived, and I was still surprised to see Aqua there when I took over the watch from her at around three in the morning every day. It was strange to have somebody be around all the time, and to still not be used to it. I couldn't understand it. Gabby and Tanya both treated her like she had always been there, but for some reason I couldn't do that, and I had absolutely no idea why.

It wasn't like how when Gabby was a baby and would wake me up with her screaming in the middle of the night and I'd be a bit surprised because I wasn't used to somebody waking me up then. It was like I didn't expect her to still be there day after day, like I thought she would just leave in the dark when we all were asleep and wouldn't be there when I went to take over the watch and that kind of freaked me out a bit. The thing that freaked me out more was that I realized that I _cared._

If she walked out in the middle of the night, abandoned us, I would care. I realized that a little more than a week after she got there. I didn't want to care, though. Caring just brought more pain and more suffering. Things get complicated when I care. Between my parents and Mia and Connor, I had cared about plenty that had ended with heartbreak, and I didn't want another person to add to the list, or even to have the ability to make the list like Tanya and Gabby could if something ever happened to one of them.

Why did I have to care when it was only going to hurt me in the end?

**Aqua**

Tyler was avoiding me. Well, it wasn't exactly avoiding, seeing as we had never interacted all that much in the first place, but for the last week, he had most definitely been trying to spend as little time with me as possible. I had no idea why. Had I done something to offend him?

I didn't think I had. There weren't really all that many manners that applied when you were in the middle of the wilderness anyway. Plus, if I had offended him I probably would have offended Tanya just as much, although Gabby would most likely have remained completely oblivious no matter what I had done.

Either way, Tyler was avoiding me and I didn't know why and it was getting on my nerves a little bit. I wanted to know why, and I wasn't exactly one to wait around and let a problem solve itself. I needed to nip it in the bud, and that meant that I would have to figure out some time to talk to him about it. My first thought was that I could just corner him sometime, but I had a feeling that that wouldn't really work all that well, especially if I wanted the conversation to remain private. Then the obvious thought struck me. He had the watch after I did. Since he had to be up, I could just stay for a few minutes before I went to bed and ask him. I quickly made my decision, but thought that it might be a good idea to wait a few days instead. I'd give him another week to talk to me first, but after that week was done, if he hadn't spoken to me, I was going to confront him. After all, confrontation was something that I was good at.

**1 Week Later**

**Aqua**

He was still avoiding me, and I wasn't about to let it rest any longer. I was getting antsy not knowing it. Secrets and mysteries had never been my strong suit. I tended to try to avoid them because I just got aggravated when I didn't know what they were, which merely meant that I usually found out what they were and had a lot of them hanging on my shoulders. Let me just say that when you're a sophomore in high school, that means that you know most of the juicy gossip, which was both a good and bad thing.

I let out a sigh when I heard his footsteps coming through the grasses behind me. He always made noise when he walked, no matter where it was. I didn't understand how it was possible, but somehow he managed it. Tyler. I didn't think I actually knew much about him at all, except for that. Yes, I knew his name, and that he cared deeply for his siblings, but could I really come up with anything other than that? No. I didn't even know something menial and boring like his favorite food or color.

He sat down a few feet away from me and said quietly, "You can go to sleep now," the same way that he did after he took over every watch.

I bit my lip. Now was my moment, I just had to take it. "I think I'll stay up a bit longer, if you don't mind. I'm not really all that tired," I replied. This wasn't a lie. I was certain that if I went to bed at that moment that I would never fall asleep, what with my mind racing as it was. I wanted to ask him my question, and damn it I was _going_ to ask him my question.

"That's alright," he answered. We sat in silence and I could taste the tension. He didn't particularly want me there. I could tell.

I chose to be blunt. "Why have you been avoiding me?" I asked him.

He turned to look at me for the first time since I had heard his footsteps, his brows crinkled together. "Avoiding you?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes," I said firmly.

"How have I been avoiding you? We live in the same place. We're always here, all the time, except for when I took Tanya on the raid," he said slowly.

"Yes, but you don't speak to me unless its absolutely necessary," I insisted. He still looked confused. I sighed and resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. He was being kind of stupid. "I mean, like how every time that you take over the watch you say 'You can go to sleep now'," I said, crossing my arms.

"Oh," he mumbled. I waited. He didn't say anything.

"So why do you do that?" I questioned once more, more quietly. "Why don't you want to talk to me?" I didn't even know where the second half of that had come from, and I was somewhat embarrassed that it had even come out. I was sure that he thought that I sounded like a whiney three-year-old who wanted her mother's constant attention.

He was quiet for a minute and I was standing up, convinced that he wasn't going to answer, when his hand shot out and gripped my wrist. His touch sent electricity running through me and I stared down at him, meeting his eyes.

"Because if I talk to you, I'm going to start to care more than I already do. And if I care more, that only increases the chances that I'm going to get hurt. And I've already had enough of that for one lifetime."

His voice was so serious and certain that I could tell he had been thinking about it a lot. For some reason, that made me happier, despite what he had said. God, this was confusing. "Just… try it," I suggested. "It might surprise you."

I stood the rest of the way and his grip on my wrist went slack as his hand dropped onto his knee. I walked slowly back to the abandoned farmhouse where the girls were asleep, having no idea what had just passed between their brother and me. I sat down on my sleeping bag and looked at Tyler's back for a minute. Then I shook my head and climbed into the bag. I could almost feel his strong hand still wrapped around my wrist.

**Tyler**

My head made a quiet thump as it fell against the wall behind me and I winced from the pain that the contact created. Why had I said that to her? Why? She didn't need to know that. She had no business to know what I was thinking. It had just sort of… slipped out.

"Damn," I whispered.

The worst thing was that she had attempted to talk me out of it, albeit briefly, she had still said something against what I was doing, and it was just going to test me even more now that I knew that she actually had noticed that I was avoiding her and that she wanted me to stop. Now I was going to start feeling guilty about it if I continued, but I would just worry if I stopped because I would start to care and… These thoughts were getting me absolutely nowhere. I sighed quietly, rubbing my temples and closing my eyes for a second.

_Dark wavy hair swinging to the side to reveal a line on her neck, dark eyes with silver behind them, the scar easily visible at the edge of her hairline, a ring of silver surrounding her pupils, that little pink line and that little silver ring… closer and closer._

_Then it changed. I was backing away now. And her eyes weren't dark anymore, but bright blue, her hair was longer, she was taller, her face changed, her smile more vibrant because of its rarity. Still the silver ring and the thin pink line were there, growing more obvious with every second that I watched, my mouth dropping open in horror, my eyes bulging. She walked towards me, her grin turning malicious, her eyebrows knitting together, her hand came out, beckoning me forward._

"_It's just me, just Aqua. Come on, Tyler. Don't you trust me? I'm not going to hurt you," she said, her voice a mere whisper._

_I backed away. "No. No. No…"_

My eyes flew open and I gulped in air, trying to pull myself out of the dream, but the images wouldn't leave my head. All I could see were those silver rings around her blue eyes. I didn't want to see that happen. That was enough without the rest, without her trying to make me one of them too. It was too late to try not to care. It was too late. I already cared far too much. And I knew—deep down—that there was absolutely nothing that I could do to change it.

But that didn't mean that I sure as hell wasn't going to try. I would get that girl out of my mind and out of my heart if they were the last things I ever did. She wasn't going to be the one to break me. Her capture, her beckoning; those would not be the things that ruined me, that made me something that I wasn't. I wasn't about to let that happen.

The problem was that I couldn't abandon her either. I couldn't just walk off in the middle of the night with the girls. That would be cruel, and they would never understand it, anyway. They wouldn't want to leave her. And, although I hated to admit it, neither would I. I already cared. And she was already a vulnerability.

* * *

><p>Yay, another on time update! You should all be celebrating. I even have the next chapter most of the way written, just so you know. Anyway, how did you like the chapter? It's a bit more filler and kind of too similar to the last one in my opinion, but it gives a little more insight into how Tyler is feeling about it, and his creepy dream. Tyler's dreams are fun to write.<p>

Please read and review! Chapter will be up next Saturday, as usual.

Ian lover: Yeah, them meeting up was kind of predictable, wasn't it? And yes, he is quite the mystery for her. She needs to crack him. (Did that sound wrong?) I hope you liked this chapter!


	11. Hope

Chapter 10

Hope

**2 Weeks Later, Mississippi**

**Tyler**

_A soft hand held mine, our fingers intertwined as I walked Mia down the hall to French Class. I had an appointment with my guidance counselor about another scholarship possibility, but being a few minutes late wouldn't kill me. And anyway, Mia was important._

_ We reached the classroom too quickly. "See you," she said._

_ "Yeah, I'll see you after school, alright?" I asked._

_ "It's a date," she replied, laughing. Then she stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek._

_ She pulled back, and her dark eyes had turned to blue, her hair lengthened, her hand rougher in mine, tougher. "Just… try it," she said. "It might surprise you."_

_ Then it wasn't a school anymore, but the place we had been a few weeks ago, in Kentucky, and my head was spinning as she faded from my vision, her words echoing through my head, like they were trying to stick but couldn't find any surface that had enough traction. "It might surprise you… surprise you… surprise you…"_

I gasped as I woke up, sitting up straight and banging my head hard against Tanya's. She looked at me, clutching her forehead, teeth grit. "Sorry!" I said, quickly.

"Not your fault," she said, wincing slightly. "I should have known not to be bending over you."

"Why were you, anyway?" I asked, grumbling slightly, although glad to be awoken from my dream. It was the third time that I had had it… or something similar, since Aqua had talked to me. They always had her or Mia or some combination of the two of them in it, and those words. Aqua's words always came up at the end. It wasn't as though she had spoken to me much since then, anyway. She was giving me my space or something. How was I supposed to know? All I knew was that I was okay with it, at least for the moment. I needed to figure out what the hell I wanted to do about her.

"You were muttering in your sleep," Tanya explained. "It woke me up. Something about now wanting to try it?" she ended it like a question, raising her eyebrows.

"Oh, it was nothing," I lied. "Just about Mom forcing me to try some weird vegetable." I felt the wrench in my gut as I said 'Mom.'

Tanya must have felt it as well, because I could tell that she knew that I was lying, but she let it pass unspoken, which wasn't normal for her. Especially since I didn't tend to lie to her. Ever.

* * *

><p><strong>Tanya<strong>

I knew that Tyler was lying to me. It was so obvious that I would have had to be blind not to see it. He didn't meet my eyes, and there was that nervous twitch of his fingers that always happened when he lied. I knew him well.

Obviously, whatever he was lying about was really troubling him, though, so I decided not to push the subject… yet. First, I was going to try to figure it out myself. He had been acting somewhat… odd, lately, and it must have started when Aqua joined us. That was perfectly understandable, I suppose. It was a change, and we weren't really used to change at this point. It was always the same for us; keeping a low profile, stealing what we could, and moving on when we were there for too long. Nothing changed, so Aqua joining us was something radical.

He watched her a lot, too, like he was trying to figure her out, but he wouldn't talk to her. Oh, he'd speak to her, but they didn't _talk,_ not really, despite her attempts. She was starting to give up, too.

I didn't understand at all why he was trying to avoid her either. She was… nice. She could be kind of blank sometimes, like she was lost in thought, and I didn't know much about her, but what I did know and see I liked. She was personable, could be funny when she wanted to, smart, and sometimes had a bit of a temper, not that it was easy to tell. She really had hit it off with Gabby too, looking at her drawings and answering her numerous questions without pause, although she tried to avoid the topic of her life before the invasion. I couldn't blame her there, Mom and Dad were painful memories for me, Carson too. Thinking about them was a sting to the heart and something that I tried to avoid, although they often appeared in my dreams.

I sighed. It was boring here. There wasn't much to do when we didn't need a raid, and the edge of this lake we were at was completely calm, nobody around for miles, which was perfect, of course, seeing as we were on the run.

"What's up, Tan?" Tyler asked, settling down beside me.

"I'm trying to figure out why you avoid Aqua," I told him bluntly.

"I don't avoid her!" he exclaimed, attempting to sound affronted. It failed miserably.

"Oh, please," I snorted. "I can see right through you. You avoid her. She tries to talk to you and you just end the conversation as quickly as possible and make up some excuse," I said, rolling my eyes.

He didn't say anything. I sighed. "You can tell me why, you know," I whispered. "I'm your sister. I care, Ty, and so does Gabby, and so does Aqua. We're all in this together now, the four of us. We can't have something stupid keeping us apart."

"It's not stupid," Tyler defended.

I raised an eyebrow. "If you're defending it, it's stupid. Just tell me," I insisted.

He let out a noisy breath. "Fine. I don't want to get close to her because then I'll care. And if I care, I'll get hurt," he said.

I laughed. He glared at me, eyes dark. "God, you're an idiot," I said. "If you care about getting hurt, then you already care. It's too late, big bro."

"Well then I'm going to stop it," he stated simply.

"You can't."

He finally gave in. It usually took me much less time to break him then that. "I know," he groaned. "What do I do?"

"Easy," I replied. "You talk to her and get to know her. Then you won't feel so scared—at the very least. Maybe you'll even see that she can actually handle herself pretty well."

"I've already figured that out," he muttered.

"Good luck," I said cheerily, standing up and giving him a false salute before going off to look for something to do.

* * *

><p><strong>1 Day Later<strong>

**Aqua**

"Hey, need some help?" a male voice asked from behind me. I was attempting to move a huge branch out of the way to clear some more space for us, but I had to admit that it was too heavy for me.

"So you've decided to talk to me?" I replied coolly, looking at Tyler with raised eyebrows and planting my hands on my hips.

"I've decided that you were right," he admitted grudgingly, sitting down on the branch that I had been trying to move. I glared at him. "Alright, so I didn't decide, Tanya convinced me," he clarified.

"She's a smart girl," I drawled in response, sitting down beside him.

"That she is," he agreed, nodding slightly. "She could have been great, a doctor or a scientist or something. You know, if not for the end of the world occurring much earlier than anybody expected."

"Yeah." I paused. This didn't seem like an adequate answer. "I always wanted to be a professional soccer player," I told him. "I was super competitive with my brothers when it came to sports, even though they're both a good bit older than me, and I was determined to make the varsity team as a freshman, which I did. They always told me that I was better than them, or at least, Ian did. Kyle would never admit that anybody was better than him at anything. He's far too stubborn for that. I wish you could see them playing together though. They're linked, almost like they can read each other's minds. It's amazing."

I stopped, realizing that I had been lost in my memories. "Sorry, I'm rambling," I said, standing up. I couldn't start telling him this sort of thing now. He had only just started speaking to me.

"No, it's alright. It's nice to hear about the good memories sometimes, before everything that happened," he said. There was a short silence stretching between us before he asked, hesitantly, "What happened to them?"

"I don't know," I whispered, my voice cracking ever so slightly. "We ran into Seekers. We-we had to split up. They told me to run, so I did," I answered with a shudder, remembering that day. "They could still be on the run, like us, but they could have worms in their heads by now."

"That sucks." I looked at him, confused about what he meant. Becoming a host to a parasite would suck, of course, but I didn't think that was what he meant. It was sympathy for me that he was giving. He'd never even met them. "The uncertainty, I mean," he clarified. "I mean, with Carson, at least we know what happened. It's not good, but at least we know that, in some twisted, way he's probably happy."

"Honestly, I think I'd rather be miserable on the run than have something stuck in my head and taking me over," I told him rather bluntly. He flinched slightly. "Sorry. I've never been known for my sensitivity, but that was pretty bad. I think it came with not being around people for a long time. I'm sorry about Carson and what happened to him."

"Nothing you could have done about it," Tyler quipped, trying to lighten the mood slightly. I decided to go along with it.

"Alright, get up and help me move this branch now," I commanded, standing up myself to set a proper example.

"Fine, fine," he said. He moved to one end and we each grabbed it, the rough bark scraping against the skin of my palms, and lifted. I was straining but it looked easy for him. Damn that boy and his muscles. Together, we moved it farther from the edge of the water and into the denser areas of brush where it was more out of the way, seeing as we couldn't easily pick our way through the brush anyway. That was something that was much more likely for a deer to be doing than us, and not even they would be around while we were in the area.

I grinned. "Success," I cheered.

Tyler rolled his eyes. "I suppose, but what was the point of that?"

"There wasn't one really," I replied, shrugging and sitting down again in the-now much clearer-clearing. "It makes me feel like I'm doing something, though, you know. I get antsy when I'm not on the move. It makes me think I'm a sitting duck, just waiting for them to happen across me."

"We're as safe as can be, here," Tyler pointed out, plopping down next to me once more and leaning against the shifted branch, which slid slightly with his weight before settling in the soil once more. "I mean, I'm sure there are safer places, but better here than out in the open on the move or raiding."

"We're going to need one soon." He looked confused. "A raid, I mean. We're running low on just about everything."

"We can last another week as long as we're careful," he countered. He sounded tense, like this was something he didn't want to talk to me about.

"Please," I scoffed. "Four more days and we'll be down to a box of cereal, a box of spaghetti, and maybe some jerky."

"Maybe I'll head out for a quick one so that we last another week after that. We can plan a bigger one that way, maybe make two or three stops in order to last a while longer. I don't like being too close to them more often than necessary."

"I'd be happy to help," I said. He gave me a long look.

"Alright. You can probably carry more than Tanya, anyway. But this is a test run for you. If you do anything stupid you're suspended from raiding until further notice," he said, but the warning turned into teasing towards the end.

"I'm glad that you have so much faith in me," I drawled. "I've been fending for myself for a long time, you know."

"I know, but working with somebody else is different than when you're working alone. And we're getting food for more than ourselves, too. We're their lifeline," he said, gesturing back to where Gabby and Tanya were with a nod of his head.

"I don't know how you deal with it," I told him honestly. "It's tough enough taking care of myself, let alone becoming a surrogate parent in the process, all in a series of minutes."

"It's tough," he answered, "but it's worth it. They're still here, you know, still happy, at least to some extent, and we're still together. We haven't lost each other. And now we have you, too."

"Yeah, now you have me," I confirmed. His remark on how they were all still together hit me hard, though. They were together, and Ian and Kyle were together, as far as I knew, and for the longest time I was alone. I lost my family, but had I possibly found a new one? I didn't want to replace my brothers, but Gabby and Tanya and Tyler, they were hope for me, hope that I wouldn't have to be alone again.

* * *

><p>Yes, another chapter on time, you can now be happy.<p>

Now that my moment of arrogance that my story makes your week (which is probably not actually true) is over, I shall say my usual thing. I hope you liked the chapter! Isn't it great that Tyler's opening up now? Yeah, it was kind of sudden, but I think it's one of those things that if you start it, it kind of keeps going whether you intend it to or not, which I originally didn't, but their conversation kind of kept going, so there it is.

Next chapter will be the raid, so be ready, there might be something... interesting that will occur during the course of it, but I'm saying nothing more than that. Please keep reading and review! I do love them so, and the new blue button is so much more prominent. *nudge nudge wink wink*


	12. Stealth

Chapter 11

Stealth

**1 Week Later, Alabama**

**Tyler**

Okay, this was it. After two days of watching this house it was time for us to go in. The aliens would be gone until five this evening at the earliest, and we would have plenty of time to get in and get out. Plus, they had just gone food shopping the day before, which meant that there would be plenty of fresh food just waiting for us to snatch.

"Ready?" I asked Aqua in a low voice. I had to admit that I was wary when she first asked to come on the raid, but she had been extremely helpful. She was more observant than I was and had noticed that they had a fake rock by there door that would probably have a spare key underneath it, if they even bothered to lock their door.

The house was almost a quarter mile from any of its neighbors, as well, so there would be nobody around when it was time to strike.

"I was born ready," she replied cheekily. I shook my head at her, rolling my eyes.

"Just be careful," I told her. She nodded and slipped out of the bushes like a shadow, using the sparse cover of the yard to make it to the front door. The midday sun was hot and bright, but she still managed to maintain some of her stealth, probably through experience. Stealth couldn't be taught without practice, and obviously she had had lots of it.

She made it to the front door quickly and checked the doorknob. It twisted easily in her hands and the door swung in without a creak. Typical. The aliens certainly took very good care of everything that they had stolen from us. She slipped through the door and into the house. I waited with baited breath, and only when she came back out and nodded towards me did I release it.

"Thank God," I whispered. It was all clear. The house was empty, as we had thought. I made my way down to the house far less discretely than Aqua had. I was heavier and bigger than her, after all, which made my sneaking around skills slightly less… well developed than hers.

Within a minute I was inside the house, closing the door quietly behind me. Aqua was already in the kitchen, looking through the pantry for things that would last, canned soup, boxed pasta, granola bars and that sort of thing. I went to help, taking as much as we could without grabbing more than would be noticed. For example, they had a bulk supply of canned tomato soup, but we only took about a third, and it was doubtful they would notice even that, what with the sheer amount of food that they had. It seemed like a lot to us, since we were always rationing and planning and making sure that it could last.

Ten minutes and we had a duffel bag full of canned and boxed food that would last us more than a week if we rationed it well. "I'm going to check the bedrooms, see if there's any old clothes that could fit. And my sneakers are starting to where through. Maybe the woman is my size," Aqua joked with a little grin.

"Good luck," I told her, hefting the duffle bag to check its weight. Not too bad. At least, I would definitely be able to carry it the distance from the house to the car without too much pain.

"You need anything?" she asked.

I was taken aback. I hardly ever looked for anything for myself on these raids, other than food, of course, but now that I thought about it. My clothes were disgusting. "Er, a tee-shirt, maybe a pair of jeans, if they'll fit…"

"Good, your clothes are falling apart," she replied approvingly. "In the future, I'd suggest picking up a new shirt at least every once in a while. If you get caught, you might be able to lie your way out of it with a clean one, but dirt-stained and smelly, the worms would know that you were on the run before you had the chance to take a breath."

I nodded. Her advice made perfect sense. She gave me a grin before exiting the room. I heard the quiet sound of her footsteps as she went up the stairs, but I couldn't hear anything of her moving around above me. She was so quiet.

I spent a few minutes filling up our few water bottles, along with the two gallon-sized old milk jugs that we had brought along, one for each of us to carry in our backpacks. We didn't want to carry too much water because it took up space that we could use to carry food, not to mention energy, but it was always good to have some just in case we ended up somewhere dry for a while, or if there wasn't much rain.

A few minutes passed and I heard Aqua walking down the stairs again, holding an old pair of sneakers and a bundle of clothing, along with a couple of tooth brushes, a tube of toothpaste, a few bars of soap, and a hairbrush. "Won't they notice those are gone?" I asked dubiously.

"Well, they had tons of tooth brushes and soap, so that won't be noticed, and the toothpaste… I don't think they'll think anything of it. They'll think that they lost the brush, and the shoes were stuffed in the back of a closet, forgotten about. I just had to switch out the laces with the ones from a newer pair. The others were about to break, I think. And the secret to clothes is to grab from the bottom and back of the drawers. That's where the ones that they wear least often are and they'll be less likely to notice or care about them going missing," she explained.

"Good thinking," I told her, impressed.

"I have lots of practice," she said with a small smile, accepting the praise in her own roundabout way. She tossed me a couple of things. "Here, try these on."

It was two tee shirts and a pair of jeans. "Turn around," I said, rolling my eyes.

I could have sworn that I saw a slight pink spread across her cheeks, but I couldn't have been sure, and I wasn't about to mention it either. She turned too quickly for me to really see and I stripped off my ratty shirt and jeans, pulling the new pair and zipping them quickly. They fit well enough. They were a bit big around the waist, but I took my worn leather belt from the other pair and pulled it tight. Then I pulled on the new shirt, which also fit, despite being a little loose like the jeans. The man who lived here must have been a little bit overweight.

"Alright, I'm done," I told Aqua and she turned back around.

"We should wash your old shirt and tear it up for rags or something," she said. I shrugged and put it into my backpack, along with the other new shirt and one of the gallons of water. Aqua changed into the new sneakers, which were a size bigger than she would have wanted, but they were better than her current pair. Well, they weren't coming apart at the seams. She put the other clothes into her backpack and took the other gallon of water. Then she grabbed an old reusable grocery bag and crossed to the fridge.

Opening the door, she reached inside for a second, taking out a bag of baby carrots, some cheese, a half-empty package of roast beef like one that you would buy at the deli, and a chocolate bar. Then she gabbed two apples from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table and eight slices of bread from the loaf that was sitting on the table, probably left out from breakfast.

"For lunch," she said simply as she stuffed it all into the bag.

"Of course," I agreed.

"I really miss chocolate," she told me wistfully as we walked towards the door, now weighed down with the food.

"I miss mashed potatoes," I told her.

"I preferred roasted ones," she replied.

"Nope. Homemade mashed potatoes are by far one of the best things in the universe," I insisted. She snorted and rolled her eyes, then gestured for me to be quiet.

I closed my mouth and she opened the door. No noise leaked in from the outside, other than the sound of the wind blowing through open air and birds chirping their morning message in the trees, responding to each other, the notes building into a general sound that to some would sound like mindless chatter, but was beautiful if you could pick it out.

"All clear," Aqua whispered, slipping out the door. I followed her, holding the duffle bag. Then I closed this door behind us with a quiet click and we made our way back up the hill to where we had been hiding out. There was another smaller bag there and Aqua grabbed it in her other hand. Then, we began to walk, a good twenty yards or so from the road, but close enough that we could hear the cars when they drove past.

We didn't speak much on our walk, not wanting to draw any possible attention to ourselves or interrupt our supplies of oxygen as we carried our loads. I shifted the bag to my other hand with a grunt. Canned food was heavy, especially after more than a mile of walking.

A quarter of an hour later, and we were at the car, where Tanya and Gabby were waiting for us and had been for the past two days. It was parked along a forgotten old road that led to a small, dilapidated house. We had considered staying in the house for a while, but we needed the raid more than we needed the shelter, so after our raiding was done we would move farther away, just in case anybody caught on to us. It was warm enough this time of year too, especially as far south as we were, and the shelter that the house would offer was meager anyway, with holes in the roof and walls falling in.

Gabby came running out of the car first, Tanya following her more cautiously, making sure that it was definitely us and that there were no Seekers behind us. "You're back!" Gabby yelled, delighted.

"Shush," Aqua scolded, laughing at her.

"What did you find?" Tanya asked, coming closer and taking the duffel bag from me and putting it on the ground. She opened the zipper and held up the different cans, inspecting them. "Yum, tomato soup!" she said excitedly when she saw them.

"And spaghetti!" Gabby added with equal vigor. We had been eating mostly beans, jerky, and dried fruit for the last week, so something with a bit more flavor would do us good.

"We grabbed something more special for lunch, too," I told her, ruffling her hair.

"What do you mean we?" Aqua scoffed. "That was all my idea."

"Fine," I admitted. Aqua looked smugly at me before sitting down on the ground and opening up her backpack. She took out the water first, then grabbed the clothes from the bottom of her bag.

"Here, Tanya," she said, tossing a few things to her. "These should fit you."

Tanya held up the shirts and smiled. "Thanks, Aqua," she said before running back to put them in the car before turning back to us. "And good job getting Tyler something that doesn't look like rags," she added.

"Hey!" I objected.

"Give him a break," Aqua said. "He's more worried about you two than about himself."

"We know," Gabby said solemnly, "but he needs to be able to take care of himself to take care of us. Will you make sure that he does?" she asked Aqua.

"Promise," she replied, holding her right hand up like she was taking an oath. "Now, how about I make some sandwiches for lunch, and then there's a treat for afterwards, too," she told them, a glint in her eye.

"Sounds good to me," I said and the girls agreed with great amounts of enthusiasm.

I signaled for Tanya to help me unload the bag into the car and she followed me, each of us holding one end. I grabbed the old bags that filled the trunk and began to stack the cans inside them, trying to do my best to organize then, but Tanya kept taking the bag and taking some things out before adding others in, rolling her eyes at me all the while.

Then, after a few minutes of this, she spoke. "You care about her," she stated frankly.

"Yes," I replied, despite it not being a question. "It's kind of difficult when she doesn't leave you any choice in the matter."

"Please," Tanya snorted. "You had a choice from the beginning. You could have rounded us up and left her as soon she was asleep that first night, or any night since then. It's always been up to you whether we kept her around. Sure, we wouldn't like leaving her, but if you thought it was for the best, we would follow you anywhere. You're our big brother, and you decided to let her stay, so she stays."

"I suppose," I admitted. "She's a good addition to our little group, though, isn't she?"

"Definitely. I would never deny that. She's quieter than you, which was probably good during the raid," Tanya agreed.

"Very," I told her. "She snuck around that house with nobody the wiser for two days before we went in and made sure that I stayed put so that I wouldn't make any noise and catch somebody's attention."

"Good. She keeps you in line," Tanya teased. I stuck my tongue out at her and she responded by doing the same. Then we broke into laughs at our ridiculousness. "It would be too late for us to leave her behind now, anyway." I nodded in agreement. "Plus, what other pretty girls are around for you to stare at?" she questioned, smirking at me.

"I don't stare at her!" I objected.

"Yes you do," she told me, like there was no way I could argue with that logic, "and I don't hear you denying that she's pretty," she added. I groaned. Damn her.

* * *

><p>Another chapter, most of which I wrote yesterday... I got myself to finally finish it this afternoon by putting pretzels and nutella on the table and saying, in my head, of course, that I couldn't have any until this was posted, so here it is!<p>

Alright, enough rambling. I hope you like the chapter, although the ending didn't come out exactly as good as it sounded in my head, I think that a bit more is revealed here, and next chapter will be another house on their raid, because just one house isn't much of a raid. Next Saturday, keep an eye out, and please keep reading and reviewing! They make me very happy!


	13. Love

Chapter 12

Love

**2 Weeks Later, Florida**

**Aqua**

"Done," I said, as I came down the stairs from the top floor of the last house on the raid. We'd been gone from the girls for a week now, but we'd hit three more houses in less time than we would have if we had stayed in the area where the car was. Plus, hitting too many houses in the same place always raised suspicion, no matter how careful you were.

"Find anything?" Tyler asked me.

"Grabbed a couple more shirts," I replied. "They're always good for something, even if that isn't wearing them, and I found a pair of jeans that I think should fit Gabby, but it's hard to tell."

"Good, hers are way too short," he said, sounding satisfied.

"Yeah, not to mention full of holes," I reminded him. "You done down here?"

"Yup," he said, gesturing to the duffel bag and grocery bag. It would take two days or so to get back to the girls, even with the car moved closer, but it was nice to have fresh food when we were walking a long distance, which we would be.

"Good, the sooner we're back the better. We've been in civilization far too long," I said. I was starting to feel antsy and paranoid from being back near people. Any amount of time was a risk, but a week felt like pushing it in my opinion.

"I know what you mean," he agreed.

I put the clothes into my backpack as always and picked up the grocery bag. Tyler always insisted on carrying the duffel bag, at least at first. I could usually convince him to switch for short periods of time, in order to keep us moving longer.

"Let's go," he said. I nodded and turned towards the front door, checking outside for cars before gesturing him past me. He started towards the edge of the large yard, where there were bushes and trees that would quickly conceal us as I closed the door behind me, gently shutting the screen door so that it wouldn't make any noise by slamming.

Then I followed him, walking across the yard, hating being out in the open even for only thirty seconds. I wouldn't run, though. Running only made people more suspicious if you were seen, and the distance was so short that it wasn't worth it. Tyler got to the bushes first and turned to wait for me, ducking lower so that only the top of his head was visible above the line of foliage.

I took the last ten paces and then dropped the grocery bag. I was still standing when we heard the sound of the car on the driveway. I saw the front of it, a bit of sunlight shining of the glossy red paint, before I had any time to react. Tyler's arm was tight on my wrist as he pulled me down below the level of the bushes.

I held my breath, too shocked to move as the car door slammed less than fifty yards away from us, only bushes keeping us from sight. Footsteps sounded up the gravel walkway leading to the door. Then the distant sound of a doorbell. After a minute, I heard the footsteps again, the car door opening and closing once more, the engine starting up, and then the smooth sound of wheels rolling over asphalt as the car backed out of the driveway and onto the main road once more.

That was when I realized our position.

Tyler was on his back against the ground, his hand still on my wrist. My hand was on his chest, supporting some of my weight so that my face was suspended mere inches above his. My right less was between his, my left to his left, and I was now aware of the fact that my chest was pressing quite firmly against his and I could feel the hard muscles of his stomach and chest beneath my torso and hand.

I turned to face him, rather than staring into the bushes as I had been, about to apologize for my position, when I saw the look in his eyes. It wasn't annoyance, or shock, or fear, or even mild amusement like I had expected. No, I had no idea what it was, but his eyes were dark and intent on my face, seeming to draw me into them.

I was aware of my heavily thumping heart, the firmness of his muscles, and how I was staring at him, but I didn't care.

* * *

><p><strong>Tyler<strong>

Okay, this wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. She was close, very close, definitely too close. I could feel her breasts pressed against my chest, one of her legs between mine, and a shaky breath went through me. I couldn't look away from those bright blue eyes, either. I was falling into them.

I was slowly leaning up, lifting my face—my mouth—towards hers. She licked her lips, and for some reason, I snapped out of it. My head dropped back to the ground, I looked away from her eyes. "Um, I think it's alright to get up now," I said.

"Oh, right, sorry," she muttered, rolling off of me and then sitting up. I sat up next to her, taking my backpack off of my back. That had been extremely uncomfortable, lying on a lumpy backpack with the weight of another person on top of you.

I looked up at Aqua quickly. Yes, I definitely wasn't imagining anything this time. Her cheeks were much pinker than normal, and I didn't think that it was from the weather, seeing as it was neither cold nor sunny.

She fixed her backpack and then stood back up into a crouch, grabbing the dropped grocery bag from the ground. "Shall we?" she asked, gesturing into the woods.

"Sounds like a plan to me," I replied, picking up the duffel bag.

We remained in our crouches until we hit the trees and stayed quiet, not really speaking to each other. Honestly, I didn't know what to say.

We had been about to kiss. Of that much, I was certain. I wasn't sure why, though. Had it just been the moment and the relief, or maybe mutual attraction, although I wasn't so sure about that one, or if we actually had feelings for each other, which I was even less certain of. And to think, we had just sorted things out when it was all screwed up again. Life was great. Just great.

* * *

><p><strong>1 Month Later, South Carolina<strong>

**Tanya**

I was extremely tired of this behavior of theirs. Aqua and my idiot of a brother had been avoiding each other for a month, but at least this time it hadn't been one-sided; although, I wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

It had been a month now, too, which was far too long for anything to go unnoticed in a group of four. Gabby had been asking them about it and they had just gone on and changed the subject. Soon, I was going to snap. They never said more than three words to each other and Tyler was starting to get on my nerves. He had been gone for two days for a very quick raid last week, which had given me a break, but now that he was back he wasn't any better.

Since we got along well, he tended to talk to me about things that had happened to him, so the really frustrating thing about this whole situation was that he wouldn't tell me anything.

"Hey, sis," he said, popping up behind me.

"Don't have better things to do than bother me?" I asked him.

"Not really," he answered, sounding sort of amused but also a little bit upset. Damn it. I couldn't stand it when he was upset.

"Sorry, but you not speaking to Aqua is really adding to the amount of time you spend talking to me, which takes a toll on my patience sometimes. Not that I don't like you, of course," I said, "I just need time alone sometimes."

"Hey, Tan, did you find that shirt I lo—" Aqua's voice cut off as she saw Tyler standing by me. "Oh, sorry, I'll come back later."

"No, I'll go," Tyler said hurriedly. Aqua just nodded and looked away from him. He was looking at her, though. Well, that was a new development. I hadn't actually seen them in the same place for a while, so I hadn't been able to listen to how they were talking to each other. I could have cut the tension with a knife if I had tried. It was like there was this great cloud of awkward that only gathered when they were in a ten-foot radius of each other.

"Off you go, Tyler," I dismissed, waving him away. He nodded, seemingly coming out of a mildly dazed state before walking off in a random direction.

"He's absolutely hopeless," I snorted.

"You're telling me," she grumbled.

"So this is his fault then!" I exclaimed, looking at her expectedly.

"Unfortunately not," she replied grimly. "If I had just ducked behind those bushes faster he wouldn't have pulled me down and we wouldn't have almost kissed and it wouldn't be so awkward," she rambled, probably forgetting that I was there.

"WHAT!" I screeched.

She slapped her hands over her mouth and looked panicked. "Shit! I-I thought he'd told you or something. I didn't mean to say that at all," she moaned, burying her face in her hands.

I grabbed her arm and dragged her through the woods. She followed me blindly, despite the fact that she could have pulled away easily, being taller and stronger than me.

"You are going to explain to me or I am going to ask Tyler to," I told her fiercely.

She looked mortified even at just me mentioning asking Tyler. "Alright, alright. Just, give me a minute to attempt to collect my thoughts," she said. I nodded and she sat on the ground. I sat next to her and put my hand on her shoulder, attempting to be reassuring after my freak-out. She took a deep, shuddering breath and then looked up again. She just looked straight ahead and I didn't try to meet her eyes, looking in the same direction that she was.

"It was the last house of the raid and we were leaving, but before the bushes there was a big stretch of open lawn. I had just reached the bushes when a car comes around the corner and Tyler pulls me down and I ended up on top of him. Even after the car was gone I didn't get up though. I don't know why. We were just so close and I… I was leaning down and he was coming up and then he just… stopped," she explained, ending in a whisper.

"Oh," I said.

She just nodded. "Yeah. I've never been kissed before. Between two protective older brothers and the end of the world, I never really got the chance to be that, and then that didn't happen."

We sat there together in silence for a few minutes, and then I couldn't hold what I wanted to say in any longer. "I think I know why he backed off," I whispered.

"Why?" she asked, her voice almost as low.

"Before the end of the world, there was a girl, Mia. He was, they were in love. He noticed the changes first because he saw them in her and… I think he feels like he can't trust his feelings anymore. He feels like everybody that he loves is going to be taken away from him," I told her.

"I could understand that," she responded slowly. "We've all had tough lives. I think about it a different way, though. I take all the love that I can get because I don't know how long it's going to last."

"I don't know how to think about it. It's never really come up with me."

"Then think yourself lucky," she said. Then, after a pause, she said, "You know what the really said thing is? I wanted him to kiss me."

"What?" Tyler's eyes were wide as he stepped out from the brush to our left.

* * *

><p>MWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA! Aren't I evil? Honestly, I've been wanting to leave a cliff-hanger for a while now, but there was never exactly the perfect spot for it. I like this one, though. You'll have to wait until next week to see what happens.<p>

I hope you liked the chapter and I'm too tired to respond to my reviews right now, so I shall be going. I had Chem SAT II today followed by my old band director's retirement concert. I'm pooped. Anyway, please review and see you (well, not really) next Saturday.


	14. Attraction

Chapter 13

Attraction

"_Then think yourself lucky," she said. Then, after a pause, she said, "You know what the really sad thing is? I wanted him to kiss me."_

"_What?" Tyler's eyes were wide as he stepped out from the brush to our left._

* * *

><p><strong>Aqua<strong>

Silence stretched between the three of us as Tyler's eyes quickly found my face. He looked shocked. His eyes would have been comically wide if I had found this situation funny at all, but as I didn't, the only thing that made me feel better was the fact that they weren't filled with disgust.

"I think I should go," Tanya whispered, looking back and forth between my face and that of her brother. She brushed past me, squeezing my arm quickly before disappearing between the bushes and trees, most likely back to the clearing.

That touch broke my moment of shock and I turned away from Tyler completely, leaving him with only my back to stare at in surprise and horror. I could still feel his eyes on my, though. For a long time—at least, it felt like that—we sat there. My breath was slowly speeding up, as well as my heartbeat, and I felt like I was using up all of the oxygen around me too quickly for the rest of the atmosphere to fill in the empty area. Then I realized that I was actually speaking under my breath, repeating the same thing over and over again until it was more like a constant buzz of noise than actual words, repeated so many times that it lost all meaning, all point. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening."

Then a hand was on my shoulder. "A-Aqua?" Tyler asked me, his voice shaking and his hesitation obvious in the light touch.

"How much did you hear?" I asked, my voice empty.

"All of it. You didn't realize that I was here at first and then I started to walk away, but I had heard too much to stop listening at that point, so I… stayed," he answered, finishing in a whisper, sounding ashamed of himself. That was good. He deserved to feel ashamed. I stayed quiet, letting him soak in the disdain and anger that I was attempting to give off. "Are… are you pissed?" he asked, sounding worried.

I ignored the question and the hand that was still resting on my shoulder as though he wasn't there. "Yeah, you're pissed," he said with a loud gust of breath exiting through his lips. He sat down beside me, removing his hand from my shoulder as he did so.

I stood. I was not about to be that close to him right now, not only because of my fading shock that was now changing to anger, but because of the fact that being close to him would only make it easier for him to get me to talk. I started to take a step away, but then his hand whipped out to hold my wrist in his grip. I grimaced at the feeling of déja vu that swept through me, the memory of the last time that we had been in a similar situation, although there was much less adrenaline involved in this one.

He released me almost immediately, obviously feeling the same way. Either that, or he saw my grimace. Whichever it was, I was glad for the opportunity to step a foot or two farther away from him. He was still too close for my liking right now.

"I'm sorry," he tried.

"Yeah, that didn't seem to stop you when you were listening," I replied coolly, keeping all of my anger hidden from him even as it escalated. I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms.

"I wasn't thinking," he said.

"I can tell." I cut him off before he could elaborate, convince me that I should just forgive him easy-as-can-be and that everything would be perfect.

Tyler let out another gust of air, sounding louder than it should have in the silence that was so complete it sounded like it must have covered the whole world in its blanket.

"Why?" he mumbled.

Damn him and that one little word in that tiny voice. He sounded so… meek and innocent and—he had gotten to me. Completely accidentally he had gotten to me. I could have kicked him, but I didn't. "Why what?" I asked, pursing my lips. I may have admitted some sort of defeat, but I didn't have to be happy about it, not in the least.

"You know why," he said, sounding aggravated.

I snorted disbelievingly at him. "You have absolutely no right to be pissed at me right now. I'm the one whose privacy was just invaded by an eavesdropper," I warned him, my voice sinking to a hiss on the last word, glaring at him.

"You're right," he replied slowly, looking up to meet my glare. I was standing over him now, so he actually did have to look up. That was different. He was taller that me, after all.

"I know I am," I told him.

"Why did you want me to kiss you?" he asked again, although hesitantly, like he wasn't sure that he was going to like my response. He probably wouldn't.

"I don't think you want to know," I informed him, an edge to my voice.

"I do, though," he said, sounding eager to hear my response.

"Fine, suit yourself, but I really don't want to tell you," I added warily. His eagerness to listen to me was getting to me. Damn him.

"Why not?" he asked, his eyebrows wrinkling together, forming a crease between his eyes.

I realized that my anger was basically gone, which sucked. How was I supposed to keep my thoughts even just a little bit private if there wasn't the rage there anymore to mask them. "For one thing, it's a bit embarrassing, and for another, I really don't want you to know."

"Oh," he said.

"I'm going to tell you anyway."

"What?" he questioned.

"I'm going to tell you anyway," I repeated, rolling my eyes.

"Why?" he wondered, now looking even more confused than he had been.

"Because I feel like it!" I snapped. Good, at least I still had enough anger left in me to snap at him. I sighed, letting out some of my tension with the steady breath. I sat down again, still keeping my distance from him, choosing to lean against a different tree trunk that the one that I had been when I was talking to Tanya.

"There are two reasons really," I started. "The first is that… well, I've never been kissed before." I could feel the blood rushing up to my cheeks. It was my stupid Irish genes, leaving me with the ability for intense blushing. Oh well, at least I didn't have red hair and freckles.

"How?" Tyler asked looking surprised again.

I rolled my eyes. "Nobody else's lips have ever touched mine…" I tried, humoring him.

He rolled his eyes right back. "I just… I mean that… Damn it!" He started over. "I just mean that you're, you know, pretty, so I can't see why you've never been kissed."

"I'll give you the math. Pretty fifteen-year-old girl, plus two scary protective older brothers, plus the end of the world, equals no first kiss," I explained, speaking more slowly that normal.

"Ah. I feel stupid now," he said.

"Good." I was extremely jealous of the fact that his cheeks had hardly reddened at all when he had called me pretty because I was certain that mine were already flushed with only thinking the next thing that I was about to say. "The next thing is worse, by the way," I announced.

"For me or for you?" he asked.

"Me. Definitely me," I answered, almost to myself. Yes, this was going to be much more embarrassing that the other part had been. It was like if that had been a puddle of embarrassment this was going to be the Pacific Ocean. Alright, maybe more like the Indian Ocean, but still torturously mortifying. I didn't even know why I was telling him, just that if I didn't now, it would bother both of us until I did. I sighed once more and then took a few deep breaths, gathering my courage. "Well, sort of like you said about thinking that guys would want to kiss a pretty girl like me, my thoughts were going in the same direction. I wanted to kiss a guy like you."

"What kind of guy is that then?" he asked, seeming confused.

"Don't make me say it," I groaned.

"Say what?" he asked, sounding all too innocent for his own good. He knew exactly what was coming, and exactly how much I didn't want to say it. Unfortunately, he also knew that I would say it anyway.

"Fine," I almost snarled, glaring at him again. He didn't even wince the tiniest bit. I glowered, crossing my arms across my chest. "Fine. By a guy like you I mean a-a hot one," I said, finishing too quietly for him to hear. He wrinkled his eyebrows together again. "A hot one," I repeated with a groan, burying my face in my hands to hide the blush that I was now certain was covering my features.

"Oh," he said, looking astounded, pink seeping into his face.

"So you can blush then," I accused him.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Well I've just been blushing through this whole conversation and you only just started. I was starting to think that you actually couldn't," I explained.

He chuckled, but it wasn't a really deep one, only mild amusement. "Yeah, I can blush," he confirmed. His tone made me think that he would roll his eyes, but he didn't. He just sat there, looking lost in thought. After a minute he spoke. "You really think that I'm hot?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him easily. Now that it was already out in the air it wasn't nearly as much of a struggle to repeat it. "You really think I'm pretty?"

He nodded slowly, then opened his mouth to speak. "Yes, you're very pretty."

"Thanks, I guess," I said. "Although I'm not really sure how many girls you have to compare me to, but all the same."

"I was a junior in High School with a steady girlfriend. I've seen plenty of pretty girls," he huffed, almost sounding like he was defending himself.

"Fine, fine, but just so you know, I don't have that many guys to compare you to," I said with a smirk.

"Well, that's not as much of a compliment then, is it?" he questioned.

"No, but I don't think that's the point," I grumbled.

"What is the point then?" he asked.

"That I think you're attractive and I now know that you think I'm attractive, so maybe we should actually talk about what we're going to do with that information," I said slowly, like I was talking to somebody with smaller mental facilities than the average person.

He stuck his tongue out at me. Then he became more serious. "Yeah, you're probably right," he admitted.

"Probably?" I asked.

"Fine, fine. Definitely right," he conceded.

"Good. Now that we have that settled, one of use should probably start talking," I suggested.

After a few minutes of silence Tyler spoke. "Alright, this is sufficiently awkward now, so I think that I'm just going to start," he announced. "Aqua, as you already know I think that you are very… I'm going to go with attractive, so as not to sound like an asshole," he started. I snorted, but allowed him to continue. "You do realize that you snort a lot, right?" he asked. I blushed. "And blush."

"Yes, I know, just get to the point already," I snapped.

"Right, sorry, my mind is kind of scattered today," he apologized quickly. "Anyway, I have absolutely no idea what to do about that."

"That was helpful," I muttered. He chuckled. "Okay, well I feel the same way, and I don't really know how to deal with this before, seeing as I haven't really ever had somebody to feel this way for in the past." I looked at him expectantly.

"Right, and I have, so I should know what to do," he inferred from my look.

"Yes," I agreed.

"Well, normally, I'd just ask the girl out, especially if I both liked how they look and they were fun to hang out with," Tyler said thoughtfully. "I don't really think that that's an option here, though."

"Why not?" I questioned, curious about his thoughts on the matter.

"Well, there isn't really anywhere to have a sort of date, for one thing, and I'm not exactly sure that our relationship, should we choose to pursue one, would be all that traditional. I mean by that, of course, that it would be about as far from traditional as you could possibly get without us being of two different species."

I snorted again. Wow, I really did do that a lot. "I suppose you're right," I admitted with a frown.

"Why are you frowning?" he asked me, eyes crinkling together, this time in concern rather than confusion.

"Because I kind of wanted to try," I whispered. He bit his lip, thinking.

"I suppose that we could… try anyway," he said. I grinned.

* * *

><p>I know, I know, I know. I'm terrible. Yes, this is more than a week late, and the last one was a cliff-hanger and that just plain stinks. Anyway, it's here now, and I don't intend to be this late every again (although when I'm at camp and on vacation I have an excuse) and I'll even try to be early with the next one. Maybe by Friday? That might be wishful thinking, but I'll do my best.<p>

Here it is, finally, and please review, even if you're mad, because that might get the next one out sooner. Definitely Saturday at the latest, though. I promise.


	15. Discovered

Chapter 14

Discovered

**1 Week Later**

**Tyler**

I had to admit that our situation was weird. Okay, our situation was just completely bizarre and unheard-of. We both liked each other, and we had agreed to try to do something, and now we weren't trying anything. It was probably my fault, too. I had been the one to agree, after all. I let out a sigh and rolled over in my sleeping bag, trying not to make too much noise.

We had just switched, Aqua taking over the watch, and now, of course, I couldn't get to sleep no matter how long I tried to count sheep or focused on my breathing or attempted to clear my mind. Other little thoughts just kept breaking their way in, and by breaking I really meant knocking down the building that was my mind in order to blow up the foundation and really lodge themselves in there.

To sum it up, I couldn't sleep.

I let out another sigh and then sat up, unzipping my sleeping bag and standing up. I squinted in the dark towards where I knew that Aqua would be until I could make out her silhouette against the night sky.

I wove my way around Tanya and Gabby's forms, both so deeply asleep that it was almost like they were dead to the world, which was rare, especially for Tanya. Then I sat down beside Aqua. She didn't turn, but I saw her lips creep into a tiny smile.

"Hey," I whispered through the dark.

"Hey," she replied. "You know that I can watch just fine by myself, right?"

"Of course," I answered, rolling my eyes. "I just couldn't sleep."

"Ah," she said with a nod, understanding. We were probably pretty big insomniacs for people living after the end of the world. You'd think we would treasure any rest that we could take, but apparently we just weren't wired that way. "Why can't you sleep?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.

"I feel guilty," I admitted.

She turned to look at me this time, her eyes filled with confusion. I reached up to smooth the line that formed between them, letting my fingertip linger on the smooth skin of her cheek before allowed my hand to drop again. "What do you feel guilty about?" she questioned me, her voice sounding a little bit higher than normal.

Inside, I celebrated at the reaction that my tiniest touch brought out in her, leading me to wonder, not for the first time since our talk, or even that night, how it would feel to actually kiss her.

"Well, we did kind of reach an agreement of trying to do something, and I feel like I haven't really lived up to it all that much," I replied slowly.

She turned to face me completely so that our knees were barely touching as we sat. "I thought that this was something," she countered.

"This?" I asked, pointing between her and myself. She nodded. I shrugged. "It is something. It just isn't really what we were talking about. Don't you agree?"

She shrugged. I could barely see the movement in the dark but I knew how it looked from seeing her do the same thing when it was light.

"I feel like I should be doing more than this," I mumbled.

Then she did something that I did not expect. She reached out and covered my hand with her own where it rested on my knee. It was surprisingly soft considering that we spent most of our time outside, open to the elements. I turned my hand over and threaded my fingers through hers. "Is this enough more for you?" she asked, sounding honestly curious about what I felt, rather than nervous like some girls would have been after doing something that in their mind was extremely forward.

"I was thinking, actually, that I kind of owe you a little something," I told her carefully, trying not to give away my thoughts. She raised her eyebrows, a silent question. "You have to come closer for me to tell you. I don't want anyone to overhear."

She rolled her eyes. "There isn't anybody here but the girls and they're asleep."

"Humor me?" I requested.

She chuckled lightly. "Fine," she acquiesced, scooting so that she was sitting immediately beside me now and turning her face towards mine. Her eyes widened slightly after seeing how close we were. "Tell me now?"

"I think it'll be better if I show you," I said. My eyes flicked quickly to her lips and then back up to her eyes as I leaned closer to her, slowly closing the distance between us so that she had time to back away if she wanted to. She didn't. Her eyes fluttered closed as my lips touched hers ever so gently before I pulled back again, keeping my hand entwined with hers and resting my forehead against hers. Her eyes opened again and she looked directly into mine as I noticed, not for the first time, how intensely blue they were.

"Wow," she said.

"It wasn't that much of a kiss," I said, amused by her response.

"But it was my first, so it was more than I've ever had," she defended.

"True," I admitted with a tiny chuckle. She laughed too, her breath tickling my face because of our closeness. "I could fix that."

"You could," she replied, her breathing speeding up.

"I think I will," I concluded, closing the very short distance between our lips once more. I let her lead the way, not wanting to do anything that she wasn't comfortable with, and after a few seconds she hesitantly began to move her lips against mine. I responded with enthusiasm, molding my lips to hers. Her hand released mine and came up to touch my face as mine moved to her waist. I pulled away again and her eyes opened at the same time that mine did. She let out a breathy laugh.

"Yeah, that was better," she said. I laughed with her and stayed sitting there with her until the sun came up, its rays painting the sky purple and pink and orange as it rose over the hills, my arm wrapped around her waist the whole time.

* * *

><p><strong>2 Months Later, Ohio<strong>

**Tanya**

"I'm hungry," Gabby complained.

"I was kind of wondering why you've been drawing food for the last hour," I joked, picking up her drawing of some sort of pie. She stuck her tongue out at me and pulled the drawing back.

"It isn't done yet," she grumbled, sending me a scathing look, as if that should have been obvious. It wasn't like I had any clue about that sort of thing, though. She was the artist in the making, after all, not me. I rolled my eyes at her while she was busy drawing some more and then looked at the sun. It was setting, so it was probably best to have dinner before it got too dark anyway.

"Alright, I'll go find Aqua and Ty and then we can start dinner," I told Gabby. She just nodded, absorbed in her drawing. I felt a little nervous to leave her there all by herself, but I hadn't seen either of the other two for a while, and they were probably close by. Hopefully, I could find them and get back quickly.

I groaned as I stood, stretching out my legs after having sat on the ground for too long. I think I must have been on a rock too. How had I not noticed that while I had still been sitting? Then I could have moved. Oh well, it was a little bit late for that now.

I sent one last nervous look at Gabby before leaving the clearing that our main camp was in, if you wanted to call it that. There was another smaller clearing just a little bit farther away that I knew they had been working on expanding a bit just for something to do instead of sitting around all day. The clearing was easy enough to find, but I didn't see the two of them immediately. Of course, I didn't account for the fact that while I was looking for two people, they were close enough together to look like one. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" I exclaimed, clapping my hand over my eyes. That was something that I never wanted to see again.

"What the—Tanya!" I heard Tyler yell. I almost moved my hand from over my eyes to see his expression, but it wasn't the worth the deepening of the scars that had already been scratched into my mind. "Why are you covering your eyes?" he asked.

"Because I don't ever want to see that again," I answered. "Now, have you removed your tongue from Aqua's mouth yet?"

"… Yes," he said slowly.

"And your hands from her shirt?" I continued.

"… Yes," he said again, even more slowly. I sighed in relief and took my hand away from my eyes. Then I grimaced again.

"Put a shirt on, Ty," I groaned. "I should have had you do that first." Tyler muttered something under his breath, picking his shirt up from the ground and pulling it over his head, his hair, messier than usual, flattened a bit. His face was bright red and so was Aqua's. She almost seemed to want to melt into the trees. Her hair was messy too, removed from its usual restraints and flowing almost down to her butt, and her shirt was somewhat rumpled.

I crossed my arms and looked back and forth between the two of them for a minute. Nobody spoke. Finally, I asked, "So rather than eating dinner, were you two planning on eating each other's faces?" Their faces, if that was even possible, turned even deeper shades of red. They remained silent. I could tell that Tyler was just waiting for the rest of my questions first. "And how long has this been going on, anyway? And what exactly has been going on? And when were you going to tell me."

Tyler sighed and ran a hand through his hair, making it stand straight up again. "No, two months, it's hard to explain, and we hadn't really discussed it," he said quickly, answering all four questions in one go.

"Thank you," I said graciously, "but you are going to try to explain."

"Alright," he said. "Aqua can do it."

"Such a gentleman," she snorted, glaring teasingly at him. He met her eyes with his own obviously fake glare and I groaned.

"Okay, enough gooey eyes, seriously," I complained, looking at Aqua expectantly.

She rolled my eyes. Her blush was already fading from her cheeks. "Well, I'm just going to say that our insomniac tendencies brought us together about a week after we had that talk in the woods where Tyler was listening the whole time," she explained, probably trying to keep it short. Rather than clearing things up for me, though, it just made me more confused.

"Okay, I didn't really understand any of that, but I don't really care all that much, so I'm just going to pretend that I never saw what I saw today and that you told me what was going on instead. Does that sound good?" I asked them.

They looked at each other quickly, like they were silently communicating and then nodded towards me at the same time.

"Should we tell Gabby?" Tyler asked uncertainly.

I closed my eyes to think for a second so that I wouldn't have to look at them. "I don't know," I muttered. "Maybe just, hold hands or something around her and let her figure it out."

"That works for now at least," Tyler said.

"Good, that means no more awkward talks," Aqua agreed with a nod.

"Right, and about that," I said, a grin creeping over my face. "You two are cooking and cleaning up for the next week. You owe me for what I saw."

"Damn it!" Tyler groaned.

"Just think about it," I teased. "You'll get to spend even more time together now!"

"We're so in for the teasing of a lifetime," Tyler mumbled.

"You think?" Aqua questioned sarcastically. I laughed and skipped through the woods back to Gabby.

* * *

><p>Finally, the chapter that you have all been waiting for has arrived? Anyway, did you like it? I know that the build-up was killing me and I'm the one writing it, so i know what's going to happen, so I can't imagine how bad it was for all of you. Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter, and if you did, please review?<p>

I think I'll try to update twice a week until I go to camp, where you won't see anything from me for two weeks. That way I'll make up for lost time. Sound good? I'm aiming for Saturdays and Tuesdays. Again, I hope you liked the chapter!


	16. Family

Chapter 15

Family

**Arizona, Jeb's Caves**

**Ian**

"Jeb, you can't tell me that you're just going to let this guy traipse through the desert right up to the caves and not shoot him. He's probably a Seeker!" I exclaimed. The old man just turned to me and tapped the gun barrel with his fingertip.

"My place, my rules," he told me simply. "If you don't like it you can leave."

I sighed. "I'm not leaving, Jeb," I reminded him, rolling my eyes. "If I was leaving I would have the first time one of your crazy ideas made me think that I was in danger."

He just grinned at me under his beard and turned back to the spot that we were watching from. It was a hill about a mile from the entrance to the caves, and we were hidden behind some rocks about halfway up. Normally, nobody would have been up here, but Jeb and a few others had gone up this morning because he wanted to fix some of the mirrors over the fields, despite the fact that we had insisted that they were still working just fine. He had of course ignored us and threatened the usual.

They had seen this guy in the distance and had quickly come back under cover, but Jeb, of course, wanted to watch him, see if he was any harm. So far, according to Jeb, he seemed to have been following some sort of path that the crazy old fool had left to somebody before the end of the world that would eventually lead here.

The guy was closer now, though, much closer, and he wasn't alone either. He had somebody smaller with him who might have been a woman or a kid, but it was hard to tell from this distance. Suddenly, the smaller figure stopped. I could here a voice, but couldn't make out what they were saying from the distance. Okay, the other person had to have been a kid. Nobody else would be stubborn enough to just sit down in the middle of a desert and refuse to go any farther.

The man sat next to him and then I couldn't tell what was happening anymore. Jeb started to move out from behind our outcropping of rocks. I grabbed his shoulder. "Are you crazy?" I hissed.

"Maybe," he replied, "but they don't seem like they're going to do us any harm."

I looked at him incredulously. Yes, he was definitely insane. I was sure now. There was absolutely no denying it. "He's probably a Seeker armed with some sort of tranquillizer that will knock us out so that they can put those worms into our heads," I told him.

"Why would he have a kid with him then?" Jeb asked.

I opened and closed my mouth several times. Jeb looked smug and walked farther down the hill before I could stop him. "Someday you are going to get somebody killed," I grumbled to him. "Can't we at least try to be strategic about this?" I begged. "We could go back and get Brandt and Kyle or something…"

"Yes, because Kyle would approach this so logically," Jeb said sarcastically. I had to admit that he had a very good point there. Kyle was one of the most illogical people that I knew. And I knew him well, seeing as he was my brother.

"Fine, Jeb," I groaned again. "We'll just do this your way and if you end up dead it's your own fault."

"Alright then," he agreed with a grin on his face once more. "Hey there!" he yelled into the desert, towards the strangers.

I ground my teeth in frustration. He wasn't even being the tiniest bit cautious, except for the fact that he at least had his gun. The man stood up quickly, pulling the kid behind him and Jeb started forward towards them. I was forced to follow him.

They were close enough that we reached them quickly, but we stayed a fair way back, not wanting to be within lunging distance incase the guy decided to attack. He might have been successful too. He was big, probably had an inch on me, and looked strong enough to be at least temporarily bring me to the ground. Jeb had the gun though, so we probably would have been okay.

"What do you want?" the man asked, still standing protectively in front of the kid.

"We're not going to hurt you," Jeb said. The man's eyes flicked to his gun and then to me before going back to Jeb. "Sorry, but the gun's a precaution."

"Where are the rest of you?" The man asked suspiciously again.

My eyes opened wide in surprise. How the hell did this guy, Seeker or whatever, know that there were more than just the two of them? "Where are the rest of you?" I asked him in response before Jeb had a chance to say anything.

"The rest of us?" he asked incredulously. "The rest of us? There aren't any more of us left because you turned her into one of you!"

Now I was confused. Jeb chuckled. "We turned her into a human, did we? How did we manage that?"

The kid was struggling to get out from behind the man, but the man had a hand on his arm, like he didn't want him to be seen at all. Then the kid spoke. "Let me go, Jared!" he yelled, yanking his arm from the man's grasp and rubbing it. He jumped away before the man—Jared—could grab him again and glared at him.

"Jamie?" Jeb asked, looking at the kid.

"Uncle Jeb!" the kid—Jamie, I guessed—exclaimed. "I knew it was you this whole time, but Jared didn't believe me. He said you could be one of them, but I knew you weren't, and I was right. He said that they could have turned her human, Jared. That means that they're humans like us."

"Jamie, he might just be trying to fool us," Jared said gently, showing the first bit of kindness that I had seen in our short encounter up until this point.

"They're not!" he insisted, crossing his arms.

I sighed. There was one way to solve this. I took flashlight from my pocket and shined it in my eyes. "No reflection. I'm human," I announced. "You want to check yourself, Jeb?"

Jeb took the flashlight and shined his own eyes. Then he tossed it across the circle and Jared did the same to himself and Jamie. Their eyes didn't show any reflection either. They were just as human as the rest of us were. We all sat in silence for a moment, stunned. Then Jamie ran across the circle and wrapped his arms around Jeb. Jeb did the same to the kid, but carefully, seeing as he was still holding the gun.

I stood there awkwardly, watching Jared as he watched the kid and the old man. "So is anybody going to explain how you know the kid, Jeb?" I asked when Jamie finally let go.

"He's my nephew. I've known him all his life," Jeb said easily. "Now, I think we've got a bit of talking to do, but first some introductions. I'm Jeb, of course, and this here is Ian," he said quickly, gesturing towards me.

"Jared," Jared said. "And apparently you already know Jamie. I've heard a bit about you from him and Me-."

He stopped there, looking pained and Jamie went over to bring him closer to us, patting his arm and looking pained himself. Jeb looked put-out. I was still confused. "I take it Melanie was taken then," he mumbled. Jamie nodded sadly, rubbing his eyes. "Tell me how it happened." Jeb paused. "Please."

Jamie told the story. Jared just looked sad the whole time. "She saw somebody on TV, the news, and it was in Chicago. She thought it was Sharon. She recognized her hair, you know, because of how orange it is," Jamie explained. "She wanted to go there, to see if we could find her because they're close and everything, but she wanted to go alone. So we went with her for a while and when we got close, Mel made us stay. Jared didn't want her to go, but she said she had to.

"She was gone for a week when we followed her because she said to wait that long. We went to the building where she had gone to find them, but she was already gone." He sniffled a bit here, wiping his eyes, but I was too intrigued by the story to give it much thought. "Later, me and Jared, we found Sharon and Aunt Maggie. Aunt Maggie almost cut Jared's head off but I managed to stop her before she did," Jamie said proudly, puffing his chest out a bit. "After that we figured out how to get here from those clues that you left on the photo album, and here we are," he concluded.

"So where'd you leave Maggie and Sharon then?" Jeb asked.

"Oh, right," Jamie said. "I forgot. Anyway, Jared wanted to come alone at first, even though Aunt Maggie said it was stupid. Jared insisted and I wanted to go with him, but he said no. By the time he noticed me following him it was too late to turn back so he had to take me with him the rest of the way. Aunt Maggie and Sharon are in a hiding place closer to the edge of the desert."

Jeb nodded. I was still confused. I had no idea who this Melanie or Mel girl was and how the other three knew her. I hesitated before asking though. Finally, I gave in to my curiosity. "Who exactly is… er, Mel?" I asked.

"My older sister," Jamie said sadly. "She took care of me after we had to run away."

I nodded. I knew how he felt. "I left with my brother and my sister. I still don't know where she is, but he…" I trailed off, looking at Jeb. He nodded and I continued. "He's here along with Jeb and I and I bunch of others. We live in caves under the desert that Jeb found a long time ago. They're really ingenious and Jeb has a bit of an ego about them."

Jamie smiled slightly, but Jared still looked sad. Jeb was looked at him closely. "So then Jared, how did you come to discover my human niece and nephew?" Jeb asked him curiously. The old man was extremely inquisitive for somebody so crazy-looking.

"We were at the same house trying to steal food. She got there first, and I ended up holding a knife to her throat before I shined the light in her eyes and realized that she was human. Unfortunately I didn't show her that I was human before I kissed her," he said, a tiny bit of humor showing up in his eyes. Jeb guffawed and I chuckled a bit at the story. That almost sounded like something that Kyle would have done, before Jodie came along anyway.

"I've got to tell you, she's fast when she wants to get away from you," Jared said.

We all sat quietly for a little while again. Then Jeb smacked his gun barrel on the ground and announced, "Well, we should get back before they send a search party out after us. We can go find Magnolia and Sharon in the morning, but I'm going to need a bit of shut-eye before facing my sister. She's a menace," he said with a bit of a shudder.

I laughed and Jamie nodded exuberantly in agreement.

Jeb set off into the desert and the rest of us followed him back towards the entrance to the caves. With two new humans to add to our group that afternoon and two due the next day, it had certainly been an eventful day.

* * *

><p>Okay, yes, a day late. I'm sorry, but I think that I have got to stop trying to predict what day I'm going to update. We ended up going to the beach yesterday, where I got ice cream, tan, and a sunburn covering the backs of my thighs. And I'm going horseback riding tomorrow, so that will be interesting.<p>

Anyway, from now on I will no longer be trying to update on a certain day, but I'll try to do it at least once a week and I'll try for two more chapters before I leave for camp next Sunday, because I'll be away from a computer for two weeks straight.

That's enough about me. I hope you liked the chapter. Honestly, I was a bit stuck about this one at first. I kind of reached an important point last chapter and I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to go yet, so I threw this in because I thought it would be kind of interesting. I hope you liked it and please keep reading and reviewing! There's a nice big box that is just begging to be filled with your comments after all. Next chapter should be up soonish.


	17. Worry

_Chapter 16_

_Worry  
><em>

**1 month later, Pennsylvania**

**Aqua**

Being with Tyler, or whatever it was, made things a bit different in our little group. First was Tanya's teasing. She was relentless. I take back almost every nice thing that I've ever said about her. Her brains only added to the number of ways that she managed to make fun of the two of us. Honestly, I was just tired of it at this point, but she was starting to ease off, if only little by little.

The second was that Gabby liked to draw pictures of Tyler and I together. They were pretty good, too, but it was really frustrating to have to sit perfectly still so that a twelve-year-old could draw us. I'm not particularly good at sitting still and eventually, for some reason that I do not understand, I tend to lose feeling in my left foot after more than half an hour or so.

Then there was the fact that Damsel likes to follow me around. Of course, I love her, and she's a great dog and most of the time her loyalty is a plus, but it is nice to be able to kiss without having a dog staring at you. It just makes me feel a little bit guilty when she looks at me like I should be giving her all of the attention, rather than Tyler.

Of course, the last thing is Tyler himself. He's great, of course. He tries to take care of me, emphasis on tries, and we always move our sleeping bags close together so that we can talk when the other two are asleep, and he's a really good kisser. I don't exactly have anything to compare it too, but that's not important. Even when we're just holding hands I can feel the spark between us, and when we kiss it isn't butterflies that fill me up; it's almost like lightning, which is cheesy and melodramatic, but it is. With all that comes some protectiveness that wasn't exactly in the bargain, though. He won't let me go first into inhabited areas, and that's if he'll even let me go with him on the raid in the first place. He keeps telling me that it's because Tanya's old enough that she needs to learn how to raid, too, but I'm pretty sure that it's just an excuse.

I sighed and rolled over in my sleeping bag. Tyler was still raiding. He said he would be back today, but it's almost midnight. It's Tanya's watch right now I can't sleep when I know that he's out there, delayed for some unknown reason that I might have been able to get around if I was with him, but I was stuck in camp.

I gave up on trying to sleep. I knew that it wasn't going to come no matter how long I waited for it, or focused on my breathing, or counted sheep, or whatever other methods there were that were meant to make you fall asleep. I stood up and went to sit next to Tanya.

"He's been late before, you know," she told me in a whisper.

"Yeah, but I'm usually with him," I responded, "or it was a three day trip and he decided to make an extra stop. This is different. He's been gone for two weeks. He could have been caught on day two for all we know," I languished.

"Don't. Say. That," Tanya hissed.

I looked at her, surprised. She wasn't one to get angry very often, so this was a new part of her that I hadn't seen before.

She must have noticed my shock because she quickly went to explain. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just, I feel like if I even think about it I'm jinxing it, that because I said it he won't come back."

I nodded. I knew what she meant. In fact, I understood completely how she felt. I didn't want to say it out loud either, that my brothers could be aliens by know, or that Tyler could be gone. The thing was, though, that it was all possible, and not saying it didn't keep it from being true, and while we were here and he was gone, there was nothing we could do to stop anything from happening.

"It's just… What if he doesn't come back?" I said under my breath, so quietly that I wasn't even sure whether or not Tanya could have heard me.

"I don't know," she replied, almost sounding numb, like she had thought about it so many times that she had run out of ways to rationalize it. I know that I had. What would I do without him? I was so dependent on him now, on all of them, but on Tyler the most. It was nice to feel protected and safe sometimes, and that was how I felt when he was around.

"Can you take over early?" Tanya asked, her voice sounding a bit rough. "I-I think I need to go to bed, to get my mind of things, you know?"

I nodded and she slipped back to her sleeping bag. I heard her unzip it and climb in before zipping it up again. I just looked out into the night, waiting for him to come over the edge of the hill in front of me.

I don't know how long I sat out there, waiting for him to come, but I eventually must have fallen asleep because I woke up as the sky was just starting to turn a misty grey to the east with my head in somebody's lap, their hand softly stroking my hair. I opened my eyes to see Tyler looking down at me, a gentle look in his eyes.

"Hey," he said.

I wasn't completely awake yet, and I hadn't had much sleep, so I asked him the first thing that popped into my mind. "Were you watching me sleep?"

He blushed a bit. "When I got back you had fallen asleep, so I made you a bit more comfortable. It was amazing I didn't wake you. And… well, you just look so peaceful in your sleep, like there's nothing left to worry about, like none of this ever happened," he told me.

I softened a bit, and I could feel the stress that I had been holding on my shoulders for the last fortnight melting away as it sunk in that he was real, that he was really back, that he wasn't just a hallucination created by my overtired mind. "You were late," I told him with a frown.

He sighed, like he had known that this was coming. Good, he should have known that. "I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. "It just took me a bit longer than I thought it would to get back here. I found something that I thought would be really useful, but it was a bit heavier than a few cans of fruit," he explained. "Do you want to see?"

"Not right now," I told him. "Maybe later, when I'm a bit more awake. I want to talk to you about something, too."

He looked immediately worried. "Should I be worried?" he questioned.

I chuckled. "It looks like you already are, but you shouldn't be too worried, unless you don't take what I'm going to tell you into account, of course."

"Er, what are you going to say?" he asked.

"I haven't quite figured it out yet," I answered. "I'll probably just wing it."

"Oh, alright then," he said, still looking a bit worried. I decided to distract him from the subject.

"So why haven't I gotten a wake-up kiss yet?" I asked him.

He smiled and adjusted me in his lap like I was no heavier then a large blanket so that I was sitting sideways with my head resting on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around my waist. He turned sideways so that his lips were mere inches from mine, and my breath caught in my throat like we hadn't done this hundreds of times before. He leaned forward and touched them to mine briefly before taking them away.

"Better?" he questioned.

"That was pathetic," I told him. I captured his lips again, taking a bit more control, and wrapped my arms around his neck, winding my fingers into his hair and pulling him closer to me. His arm tightened around my waist as his free hand moved to cup my cheek.

I opened my mouth and pulled at his bottom lip with my teeth. He shuddered a little bit and opened his mouth so that his tongue could reach mine, the hand that had been cupping my cheek moving to caress my neck and shoulder. The fingers of the hand resting on my waist slipped up under the edge of my shirt, tracing patterns over the skin of my hip. I moaned quietly as he moved his mouth to kiss first below my ear, and then down the side of my neck until he reached my collarbone.

I pulled his lips back to mine and would have happily continued to make out with him for a good bit longer, except for the fact that he pulled away. I pouted and refused to move my arms from around his neck. "We're in direct view of the girls, and I really doubt you want them to see anything more than that," he said far too rationally.

"You're right," I sighed, resting my head in the crook of his neck and moving one hand down to rest on his knee as I sank a bit lower in his lap. I traced circles on the fabric of his jeans until he grabbed my hand in his.

"That's not helping," he grumbled.

I smirked up at him. "But it makes me feel better. At least now I know that you wanted to continue that a bit longer as much as I did," I reasoned.

He chuckled quietly and squeezed my hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it in a soothing way. I relaxed into him and he wrapped both of his arms around my waist, resting his head on my shoulder as I leaned mine back on his.

Just as I was thinking that while I was there I could easily kiss his neck, he stopped my thoughts. "Don't even think about," he commanded, sounding stern, but amused at the same time.

"Think about what?" I asked innocently.

"You know what," he replied.

"This?" I wondered, turning my head slightly and pressing my lips to his neck. I repeated the action twice more before he managed to speak again, sounding slightly strained.

"Yeah, you shouldn't do that again," he affirmed.

"Alright," I sighed. "I missed you a lot, you know," I whispered.

"I had realized, actually," he teased.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," I scolded him. "I mean, I missed the kissing, of course, but I could live without that just fine for a while. I just missed sitting like this with you, feeling like nothing can hurt me."

"I know," he agreed. "I missed you too."

"Good. If you hadn't I might have to throttle you later," I threatened. It was an empty threat, though. What would I do without him, especially if it was my own fault?

"Why later?" he asked, sounding weary.

"Because I'm exhausted and don't have enough energy," I answered.

"But you had enough energy to make out," he said skeptically.

"Of course," I said simply. He kissed the top of my head and we watched as the sun made its way above the horizon and colors filled the sky. Somehow, my only thought was that I was thankful that Gabby wasn't there trying to draw us in the sunrise. She took a really long time to draw a sunrise.

* * *

><p>Okay, so I'm a terrible updater. My only consolation is that for two out of the last four weeks I have been missing in action, I was at camp, and since then I've kind of had some writer's block for this story. Honestly, up to this point it was all gearing up to get to Tyler and Aqua being together, and now that it happened I wasn't quite sure what to write about.<p>

Anyway, this was a bit of a filler chapter written after midnight, so it might be a bit off, but I hope that you like the dynamic that I set up between the two of them. I actually have a great idea for the next chapter, so it should be up soon, you know, before I leave on Sunday to be without the internet for most of the next ten days. (We're going on a six day white water rafting trip, so no electricity!)

Please review, even if you're mildly annoyed with me. I hope you like the chapter.


	18. Surprise

_Chapter 17_

_Surprise_

**That evening**

**Tyler**

I turned as I felt arms wrap around my waist from behind me. "Hey," Aqua said, "we haven't had a chance to talk yet."

"I know, I'm sorry," I told her. "Tanya insisted that I help her set up the radio, since I'm the one who found it and everything."

"What was wrong with it that needed setting up?" Aqua asked me, looking confused. "It's a radio…"

"Well this one apparently runs on solar power, but it took us a while to figure out that those were what the little black panels on top were. We thought that it just needed batteries and wasted time looking for them before we realized that there wasn't even a place to put them in," I explained somewhat sheepishly, grabbing her hand.

"I'll bet you did well in school," she snorted.

I stuck my tongue out her and she laughed. Then she sobered up, looking a bit more serious. "Can we go somewhere to talk?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. I turned to call out to Tanya. "We're going a little ways away, we'll be back in a little while."

She nodded. "Have fun, but not too much," she chided, smirking all the while.

I chose to ignore her and took Aqua'a hand, leading her towards a copse of trees that was nearby. "So, what did you want to talk about?" I asked her slowly.

"I was really worried about you while you were gone," she stated simply. I opened my mouth to reply, but she continued. "I mean, it was bad enough that you were gone for a while, but then you were late. If you had even come back yesterday evening I would have been fine, but then it was nighttime and I was freaking out. Just ask Tanya about it. I ended up taking over her watch because I was up anyway."

"I'm sorry," I started. "Next time I'll—"

She shook her head. "There's not going to be a next time. You can't leave me here to worry about you while you're away for two weeks. I can't stand it! I can't be that worried about you for that long! What if next time you're taken? What am I supposed to do if that happens?"

"It won't—"

"You can't promise that!" she shouted. I could see her trying to calm herself down, taking deep breaths. "You can't promise that nothing will happen to you out there. You can't leave me here to know that anything could happen to you and I would never know. I don't know what happened to my brothers, and I have no way of finding out. I can't lose you the same way. I don't know what it would do to me."

I reached out to cup her cheek in my hand, bringing her eyes up to meet mine. I gulped. "I just—I can't lose you," I whispered. "I can't lose anybody, but especially not you."

"You're far less likely to lose me if I'm with you," she argued. "Think about it. If I'm with you, we can watch each other's backs. When there are two of us, we're so much less likely to make a mistake because there are two of us there to catch it. I care about you at least as much as you care about me, so why does that make me have to be the only one to worry? You get to know that I'm safe in camp while you risk yourself for days on end. That's not fair to me and you know it," she hissed.

I dropped my gaze from her eyes now. It was all true. I realized that now that she had said it out loud. I was selfish. I didn't even know why she wanted to be with me. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't even think about it that way. I don't want to make you worry, I just can't stand the thought of losing you." More than anything, I wanted to tell her I loved her, but I couldn't get the words out. I couldn't open myself up to that kind of vulnerability any more than I already had.

"Promise to take me with you next time?" she asked quietly.

"Aqua…"

"Promise me that," she commanded. "It's the least you can do."

"I promise."

She reached up to just barely brush my lips with hers. "Thank you."

I sighed. I didn't like this, but I had to admit that she was right. If one of us was going to be taken, the other should be able to do everything in their power to stop it from happing before it did. I wrapped my arms around her and rested my chin on top of her head, which was now cradled in the crook of my neck.

We just stood there for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and the feeling of knowing that the other was there, that they were safe.

Then Tanya came bursting through the trees, a look that I didn't recognize in her eyes. "What is it?" I asked.

Aqua looked up at Tanya as well. "Is something wrong?" she questioned.

"There's something you need to hear," Tanya said. "It's on the radio. You've got to hurry up or you might miss it!"

She sped out of the trees again and we had no choice but to follow her, sprinting back to camp, where Gabby was sitting by the radio. As we got close enough I could hear what was being said. It sounded like a police report.

"Three humans have been spotted outside a grocery store in Phoenix, Arizona. They are armed and dangerous. I repeat, humans have been seen. Three men, all over six feet, one with brown hair and brown eyes. The other two are nearly identical, with black hair and blue eyes. If you see these men call the Seekers immediately."

I heard Aqua gasp and turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide in shock as she listened to the report.

"What?" I asked her. "What, Aqua?"

"It's—I-I think those are my brothers," she stammered.

Well, she wasn't the only one who was shocked anymore.

* * *

><p>Okay, I apologize about how short this is, but I needed to leave it off here. I know what's coming up next, but it won't be until I get back from vacation. We're going white water rafting, which I may have already told you, so NO ELECTRICITY! Anyway, it's short, and a cliffhanger, but MWAHAHAHA!<p>

I'll post when I get back. Hope you enjoy it. Please review, because I'll be super happy if I come home to an inbox filled with reviews.


	19. Disappearing

Chapter 18

Disappearing

**Aqua**

"It's—I-I think those are my brothers," I stuttered. My mind was both racing and slowing down at the same time, every memory of them crashing into it only to be obliterated by the one huge thought that I couldn't seem to get past. _Ian and Kyle were alive, and they were being chased by seekers._

I shoved Tanya out of the way and knelt in front of the radio, completely tense, waiting to hear more, but the report had already turned back to it's regular news programming, talking about how there was a freak snow storm that was raging in Seattle.

I felt an arm around my waist and looked over at Tyler, who was looking straight at me, looking as surprised as I felt, but also a little bit concerned. "Aqua, what do you mean you think that they were talking about your brothers?" he asked slowly, as though he was trying not to startle me by speaking too quickly.

"They—that was their description. They're both tall, six three, and they have black hair and blue eyes just like mine. Everybody thought that they were twins all the time, because they look so similar. They even sound the same when they talk, except that Kyle's louder. He's the older one. They only looked different because he's had his nose broken too many times to count. I even broke it once by punching him in the face, and I think Ian's broken it at least once playing basketball and once on purpose when he was fifteen and Kyle was sixteen and was making fun of him in front of some girl that he liked," I stopped talking, overwhelmed by the memories of them again. I could see their faces in my mind, grinning proudly as I scored the winning goal of a soccer game or brought home a math test with 96% written across the top.

Then images of the last time that I saw them leaked into my mind, running for their lives from the seekers, desperately telling me to turn away and escape, trying to save me by leading the seekers off.

I sat on the ground and wrapped my arms around my legs, completely overwhelmed as tears started to fall from my eyes, making dark spots on my ratty jeans as I heaved with sobs.

Tyler's strong arms wrapped around me, but they didn't make any difference. He held me tightly in his lap and I buried my face in his neck, sobs wracking my body, causing both of us to shake as he murmured things that I was too far-gone to understand at this point. Eventually my tears ran out and I was left shaking slightly in his arms with a bad case of the hiccups. After a little while longer they subsided and I spoke.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"You don't have to be," he replied gently.

"No," I shook my head at him, "I'm sorry for reacting like that. Hearing that they were alive… It should have been good news, but all I could take in was that they were being chased by seekers, that I still might never know what happens to them."

"It's alright," he said soothingly. "You reacted. You can't help that sometimes."

I nodded. "I'm sorry that I got your shirt wet," I added quietly.

He chuckled and I felt it where I was resting against his chest. "It will dry."

"I—" I bit my lip for a second, hesitating. "Thank you for sitting here with me. Your legs are probably asleep, and you didn't have to do anything like that."

"Of course I did," he scoffed. "I care about you a lot, more than is healthy, probably. Of course I had to make sure that you were alright."

"I was alone for a long time, twice as long as I've been with you, I think. I'm still not exactly used to having people there for me," I admitted quietly.

"We'll always be here for you," Tyler promised calmly.

"I know."

* * *

><p><strong>One week later<strong>

**Tyler**

I opened my eyes to find Aqua unzipping my sleeping bag. "Can't sleep again?" I asked her drowsily.

She nodded and climbed in next to me, pulling her own open bag over us like a blanket. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her so that her back was resting against my chest, her head tucked beneath my chin.

"Why have you been so… antsy lately?" I wondered.

"I… I don't like the fact that we've been so… stationary," she explained haltingly.

"That's all?" I probed, unconvinced by her answer.

"My brothers are out there," she stated, "and I'm sitting here keeping myself safe. They're risking their lives running from the seekers and I'm not doing anything to try to help. I feel like, as their sister, I'm failing them."

"How could you be failing them?" I asked her. "They wanted you to keep yourself safe. You've done that."

"I could do more, though," she argued. "I could be doing something, looking for clues, trying to find them."

"Aqua… you don't even know if they're still in Phoenix. They could be a long way away from there by now, especially if they have a car. Most likely they're moving around, just like we are. It would be almost impossible for us to find them," I told her.

"You don't understand, Tyler!" she hissed, turning so that she could look at me, a few inches between us. "You don't know how it feels to think that you're the only one of your family left, and then to have that hope brought back only to realize that you can't do anything about it!"

"My parents gave themselves up so that the four of us could live—the four of us. I failed them. I failed Carson. Don't try to tell me that I don't know how it feels to have somebody that you love taken away from you," I responded, anger building up inside me like white-hot magma.

"It's not the same. You still have your family left around you. I can hardly remember what my brothers look like, other than the things like hair and eye color. When I try to think of what Kyle's laugh sounds like, or what Ian's favorite shirt was, and I can't. They're fading, Tyler," she said, her voice cracking when she said my name.

"I'm sorry, I know it's not the same," I soothed, rolling onto my back as she gripped my t-shirt tightly, her head coming to rest on my chest. I slowly rubbed her back, trying my best to calm her down.

"I've lost everyone and everything that I have ever loved and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm terrified, Tyler. I'm terrified that the next time we listen to that radio we'll hear about them being caught and I'll lose them all over again." She whispered it so quietly that I almost hadn't heard her say it.

I didn't know what to say. All I could do was hold her close and hope that she fell asleep sooner or later. Eventually, her breaths steadied and her body relaxed some next to me and I knew that she was asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>The next morning<strong>

At some point I must have fallen asleep as well because I opened my eyes and it was sunny out. Aqua was gone, but I figured that she must have just woken up before me and hadn't wanted to wake me. I rolled over and stretched my arms over my head only to feel something crunch under my shoulder.

I sat up and looked to see that wear Aqua had been sleeping there was a piece of paper. She had left a note. That was considerate of her.

I unfolded it and as I my eyes traveled over the words, their meaning didn't hit me until halfway down the page and I backtracked. By the time I was finished reading my hands were shaking, my breath was ragged, and my heart was beating a mile a minute.

She loved me. She was gone and she loved me. And Tanya had gone with her.

* * *

><p><strong>Four hours earlier<strong>

**Aqua**

When I woke up it was obvious that it was still the middle of the night. The sky was black and there was still no hint of gray on the horizon that signified the coming dawn. More importantly, however, was that in those few hours of sleep, a plan had formed in my head. A week ago, I never would have been this rash, this brave, but my brothers were alive and I needed to find them more than I needed to keep myself safe.

I needed them more than I needed Tyler. At least, at the moment I did. I had needed Tyler to put me back together again, so reconstruct the lonely broken person that I had been before we had met each other, but now I needed my brothers to be the missing piece that was a large part of my heart, so I had to leave.

It didn't take me very long to gather all of my supplies, along with three days worth of food. I would have to take a chance and break in somewhere as soon as I was able to, but I didn't want to take very much. My gun was strapped to my belt, along with a flashlight, a canteen, and a sheathed knife. I ripped a blank sheet of paper from my journal; grabbed one of our many half dried out pens; and began to write. Slowly, so as not to wake anyone with the scratching of the pen on the paper, I managed to form, in somewhat shaky handwriting, the words that I needed to get out.

_Dear Tyler,_

_ I'm sorry, but I can't sit here anymore. I can't stand not doing something to find Ian and Kyle while I have the chance. This is something that I need to do, and I'm so sorry that you couldn't wake up one more morning to find me in your arms, and I'm sorry that I can't be there with you one more morning._

_ I would have asked you to go with me, but you would never have let me go. And I'm the one who has to do this. I can't take a backseat while you do all of the tough work. That's just not in my nature._

_ Once again, I'm sorry and I don't know how you'll even be able to accept that apology, but I don't know how else to say it._

_ I'm going to look for my brothers, Tyler, and I've taken measures to stop you from following me. First of all, I'm taking the van. I'll leave it in Philadelphia for you, parked three blocks North of the Liberty Bell unlocked and with the key under the seat. It won't be stolen. The aliens are too nice for that._

_ I'll steal another car in the city. It shouldn't be too difficult. After all, I have practice._

_ In two months, go to San Antonio and meet me at midnight at the Alamo. Do this every night for a week. If I don't show up, then I haven't found anything yet and there will be a note taped underneath the mailbox of the closest house to the area that has a red front door. It will have an update on my wellbeing and the next possible meeting place._

_ Once again, I'm sorry that I have to leave. I don't know what else to say other than to ask you not to follow me too soon. Stay for a few days before you leave for Philly. Please. That's all I ask. Don't look for me. Take care of the girls and Damsel._

_ I love you._

_ Aqua._

I put down the pen, which had run out of ink just in time, folded the letter up. I took one last look at Tyler, swept his hair out of his eyes. I kissed the folded note and let my tears fall onto the paper. I knew that they would be dry before the sun was up.

Then I turned and made my way to the van. I opened the car door and sat down, putting the keys into the ignition.

"I see that you forgot about the guard," Tanya's cool voice said from the passenger's seat. I almost jumped out of my skin.

"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed, whipping my head around to look at her.

"I'm going with you, obviously," she stated, pointing to her things, which were already packed and in the back seat.

"No, you're not," I told her.

"Yes, I am," she argued.

"Get out."

"Make me."

"You don't understand. I have to do this alone," I insisted.

"No. You have to do this without Tyler, without him trying to keep you safe. You just have to actually be able to do this," she countered.

I changed tactics. "How did you even manage to pack without me noticing?" I questioned her.

"I've been packed for the last three nights, just waiting for it to finally hit you that this was something that you needed to do," she explained easily.

"Clever," I conceded. "But are they really going to be fine losing two of us?"

"Don't try to make me feel guilty," she snapped. "I'm going to help make sure that we make it back to them. I'm going to keep you from the making the unnecessary, useless risks that you would make alone, so don't try to pin this on me."

"And what if I leave on foot?" I asked.

"Then I'll follow you on foot and leave a trail behind me so that Tyler can come after us with the van and bring you back," she answered easily.

She was too smart for her own good. I swore and got out again, leaving the door open.

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

"To add to my note."

I snuck back, seething silently at her. I took a few deep breaths and tried as best as I could to avoid looking at Tyler as I reopened the note and added a post script.

_P.S. I'm sorry. I feel like I've said that more than anything else. Tanya caught me trying to sneak by her while she was on guard. I couldn't stop her. She won't leave the van, and I need the van. She's coming with me and I don't have a choice in the matter. I'll try to convince her to meet you in San Antonio, even if I haven't succeeded yet, but you know how stubborn she is. I'll take care of her. I love you._

The note was quickly folded up again and I got away from him as quickly as I could without making any noise. Then I was in the car. I turned the keys in the ignition, fastened my seatbelt, and pulled away as quickly as I could.

"Put on your seatbelt," I told Tanya without looking at her. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."

After I heard the click I shifted and pushed down on the gas pedal and we sped off towards the nearest road and the oncoming dawn.

* * *

><p>Okay, I'm an awful person who completely realizes that it has been three months since the last time that I updated this story. Anyway, I have a long list of excuses as to why. Some of them are good, but some of them are very... excusy. And I know that that is not a word. Anyway, here they are:<p>

1. Vacation

2. Start of school combined with writer's block

3. Lack of interest in writing/explosive interest in reading (I went on a temporary reading not writing streak. Shoot me.)

4. Hurricane Sandy

5. End of term and start of Drivers' Ed for six hours a week (Need I say more?)

And that brings me to this weekend. Since term officially ends tomorrow, all that is said and done with. And to brighten your days just a little bit more, the next two weeks should be a breeze. First, this is a four day week and thanks to a career colloquium on Wednesday, I'll have less work to do than usual as well, not to mention it will be the first week of the next term. Saturday, however, I will be busy all day at District Band auditions. (Wish me luck.) Then next Monday I have an all-day field trip, so I shouldn't have any homework. Then there is "Spirit Day" on Wednesday, which is a short day anyway, followed by Thanksgiving Break.

So, basically, for the next two weeks, I will actually be able to write, which is fantastic. Oh, and I have another chapter that will be ready for me to post by this upcoming weekend, if not sooner. So yay!

Now please don't hate me, please review, and please tell me what you thought of the chapter!

By the way, my inspiration to finish this chapter and post today was because of a favorite alert that I got in my email, so those things really do make a difference. I hope that you like the chapter, and that you don't hate me for it.

Okay, author's note is finally done. Sorry about the length. Please review!


	20. Different

Chapter 19

Different

**1 week later, South of Philadelphia**

**Tanya**

I was almost shocked by how well things were going at this point. We had gotten to Philadelphia in a day, and it wouldn't even have taken us that long if we hadn't had to stop to avoid the Seekers for a few hours.

It took us two days after that to find the right sort of place to get a car from. It was a quiet neighborhood and there was a family of worms who were taking a vacation. They had left one of their cars out in their driveway, unlocked. Aqua got into the house, which was also unlocked, found the keys hanging on a hook, raided the kitchen for nonperishable food, searched bedrooms for some clothes that wouldn't look as ratty as ours were, and made it out in less than an hour. Of course, before that we had also watched the house for a day. I drove the van and Aqua drove the stolen car and I parked three blocks north of the Liberty Bell, just like she had promised we would.

From there, we stayed another day in the city, checked on the van to make sure that it hadn't been stolen or moved or anything, and then left the city.

The last two days have been spent making short raids for the things that we needed but had left with Tyler and Gabby. We filled gallon jugs with water, found matches and medicines, and stole another hunting-type knife for me to carry, seeing as Aqua already had one and the gun. It took us a while to find that, seeing as the aliens were so anti-violence, but we managed it.

Now, we were on our way to our first stop: Albuquerque. While it seemed like a somewhat random first stop to make, and the fact that it was a good bit farther than our eventual two-month-from-now destination of San Antonio, Aqua and I had agreed that it was necessary.

Originally, she had wanted to go all the way to Phoenix, but I had advised her against it. The Seekers there were bound to be on higher alert than usual, even though it had been a few weeks since her brothers had been seen there, so we were going to avoid Arizona completely if at all possible. Of course, we didn't even know whether they would know anything about the sighting in Albuquerque, but we would find out when we got there… somehow.

For now, I was more worried about getting there. It would take us at least a week, and most likely two, since we were avoiding traveling through large cities and we were only driving at night.

And neither of us were exactly in top condition either. Physically, we were both fine, of course, although Aqua hadn't been eating or sleeping as much as she should have been, and I wasn't sleeping all that well. I was worried about Tyler and Gabby making it to Philadelphia without being caught, and Aqua seemed to be rather guilt-stricken about leaving.

It was different being with just her, though. And she was different away from Tyler and Gabby, too. Even guilty and somewhat regretful, she seemed to have more of a purpose than she ever really had had before. It was different… and to some extant inspiring. I _wanted_ to her with this so that she could see her brothers again, but it wasn't just that. I wanted her to have something to do other than staying up for guard duty and making the occasional raid. She was somebody who needed to have a goal, and I wanted to help her achieve it.

* * *

><p><strong>Gabby<strong>

Tyler wasn't happy. Aqua and Tanya had been gone for a week now and while I wasn't exactly pleased about that, I wasn't exactly wallowing in misery the way that he was. We would see them again eventually. Right now, however, Tyler was staring into the fire with his arms wrapped around his knees, his dinner only half-eaten. He had bags under his eyes from not being able to sleep. When we were moving he seemed all right, though exhausted, but whenever we stopped he would sink back into this… depression.

I sat next to him and leaned my head against his shoulder. He didn't react, continuing his staring contest with the fire like his life depended on it. And maybe it did. How was I supposed to know what was really going on in his head? Maybe he wasn't actually as empty as he looked. Maybe he was angry, or terrified, or worried out of his mind about them. The thing was that I. Couldn't. Tell.

I picked up my sketchbook and flipped to a drawing of him and Aqua, huddled together under a blanket. "Tyler, just because they're gone for now doesn't mean that you'll never see them again. This isn't like what happened with Carson. They left of their own free will, not because a Seeker slapped handcuffs on them and stole away with them in the middle of the night," I whispered.

"It feels like we'll never see them again," he said gruffly, his voice hoarse.

I handed him a bottle of water and he took a long drink from it before handed it back. "We'll see them again, Tyler," I promised. "Just don't lose hope now. We've stayed free for so long that it wouldn't do to lose hope just because we've been separated for a while. It's not permanent. We'll see them again, even if it isn't for a year or more. Aqua just has something that she needs to do, and she couldn't do it with all of us tagging along."

"You're too smart for your own good," he muttered.

I smiled a bit at that and kissed his cheek before putting my sketchbook on the ground in front of him and walking away. It was my turn to do the dishes.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that he was looking at the drawing. I couldn't see his face, and I didn't think he was smiling. He may even have been crying. I didn't really care, as long as he wasn't letting emptiness consume him.

* * *

><p><strong>2 Months later, San Antonio, Texas<strong>

**Tyler**

It didn't take me very long on the final night to realize that they weren't going to show up. For the past six nights I had waited for them to show up, but it never happened and every night I had started to lose the hope that I was going to see them again.

By the last night, I was certain that they wouldn't show up. A few minutes after one in the morning, Gabby and I started the search for a house with a red door. It was a block and a half to the west on the opposite side of the street. The mailbox was big and black with the number 1652 painted neatly onto the front, surrounded at the bottom by red and yellow flowers.

My hands were shaking, so Gabby reached underneath to remove it. She handed me the folded note and looked at me expectantly. I shook my head and put it in my back pocket, intending to read it once we were safely out of town. The van was only a few blocks away and we were back on the highway within half an hour, on our way out of the city. After an hour of driving at the speed limit so as not to attract attention, I pulled off onto a small road and carefully opened the note.

_Tyler and Gabby,_

_ If you're reading this, it means that you're safe. And so are we. We went out to Albuquerque to ask some questions, but unfortunately there weren't any answers. We kept driving until we got to Flagstaff, pretending that we were two sisters who were taking a road trip across the country and asking question as we went in a way that would make somebody think that we were worried about our safety._

_ All we know is that there was a disappearance two or three months ago between Flagstaff and Phoenix, but that they never got any clues. I think that it must have been them._

_ We're doing well, we've got a car, and our ruse has held up so far. Nobody is suspicious anymore. You can walk into a store or a gas station and nobody will question you except for friendly small talk._

_ Anyway, the next meeting place is between the two "l's" of the Hollywood sign, three months from the last chance at meeting us at the Alamo. If we don't meet you within a week, the note will be taped as high up as you can reach on the Chinatown entry arch thing in Los Angeles. Hopefully, we'll see you then. If not, there will at least be a note._

_ Keep being careful. We love you both._

_ Aqua and Tanya._

I passed it to Gabby next and she read it quickly. "I'm sorry," she said.

"It's not your fault," I told her with a sigh. "I just wish we could have seen them, if only for a minute or two."

"Yeah, but if we had we probably would never have let them go again, and then they wouldn't be able to do what they need to do," Gabby argued.

"I know. I can't help but wish that they had been there anyway," I admitted. I had come to terms with Aqua just up and leaving in the middle of the night now. And the fact that Tanya had followed her, but that didn't make the fact that I missed them any less true. I missed the feel of waking up with Aqua in my arms, or talking to her in the middle of the night when one of us was on guard duty and the other couldn't sleep.

I missed Tanya's wit and the way that she always knew exactly how I was feeling. I even missed her constant teasing. It was just so hard to be away from them like this. Even though we'd only been with Aqua for six months before they had left, it felt almost like we'd been that way forever. And nothing was the same without them.

* * *

><p>I'm being a good updater for now, I promise. See, it's been a week. That's good.<p>

Anyway, I hope that you liked the chapter, and I would like to thank my three reviewers who reviewed the last one. They make me smile. Anyway, please keep reading and reviewing and feel free to tell me what you think. It doesn't even have to be about the story. For example, you could talk about your Thanksgiving plans. I'm staying home and my aunt is coming to visit. And I'm making cheesecake.

There, you could also talk about cheesecake now. Keep up the good reading (and in some cases reviewing)!


	21. Letters

_Chapter 20_

_Letters_

**2 Months later, Hollywood, CA**

**Gabby**

"That was a good idea, Tyler," I assured him as he finished securing the note to the first "l" of the Hollywood sign.

"You think so?" he asked, sounding worried. "She might be angry that we tried to contact her."

"If by 'her' you mean Aqua, I don't think that she will be. I'm sure that she wants to actually hear about us and just didn't think of a way to manage it without risking exposing herself and Tanya," I told him.

"I hope so."

* * *

><p><strong>3 Weeks later<strong>

**Aqua**

_Ay—_

_ I hope that you're not mad that we left this, but I just wanted to be able to actually _say_ something to you, not just hear your news. And I think that I might go insane if I don't get to talk to you (well, write), anyway._

_ I'm sorry that you haven't had much success so far, although I'm not really that surprised, since you haven't been looking for very long. I wish that it would go faster though, if only so that we could be together again. God, I sound like such a girl, not that that's a bad thing… you know what I mean. I'm selfish. I just want you back. I know that you need to do this. I know what it's like to lose your family, and I would do anything to get mine back if I could._

_ I hope that we see you in a few weeks, although I know that the chances our slim. You're not going to give up that easily, and this is going to be a long search. I can feel that, and I'm not even the one looking._

_ Be careful. Please. That's the most important thing. I love you._

_ Tyler_

_P.S. Gabby wants to add that you need to make sure to keep your clothes clean and to steal new ones so that people aren't suspicious if they catch sight of you. She also wants to know if you'll try to find some post cards of where you've been and drop them off at the next meeting place so that she can try to draw some different scenes._

I smiled and ran my finger over his name, chuckling at Gabby's request. That girl never ceased to amaze me.

Tanya finished her own letter and shot me a small smile, although I could tell that this was only really making her miss them more. I felt the same way, but Tyler was right. I wasn't about to give up on this anytime soon. I finally felt like I was doing something other than waiting to be caught, and it felt good. I wasn't restless anymore, and I was determined to see this thing through to its end.

* * *

><p><em>Tyler—<em>

_ I'm switching to your nice informal style now. I realize that my first note sounded a little bit… harsh, cold. It's easier to write this way too, and I guess it feels more like a conversation, all be it a very long, drawn out one._

_ I wish that I was seeing you right now, and I think that I can believe at this point that you won't try to stop me from looking. As far as I can tell from your note, anyway, you at least seem to understand that I'm going to do this and that you can't stop me. And I don't want to stay away from you, but four people are too many to go traveling together unnoticed. Two girls, if we're seen, it can just be friends or sisters traveling together, but three girls and a boy all under twenty-five is a little bit suspicious._

_ It's faster with just the two of us, anyway. We don't have to stop and steel so often or as much as we would as a group of four. I know that it isn't much comfort, but it's honestly as much of me trying to convince myself as it is trying to convince you._

_ We haven't found much else here. I think we'll have to go back into Arizona to find out more. There might be something to learn in Phoenix. In fact, there are probably records there of incidents like disappearances. There might be a pattern. Unfortunately, I have no idea how we would manage to get into them. _

_ Keep the letters close. I'll try to have some postcards for the next one for Gabby. Tell her that I wish that I could see her drawings and that they've probably gotten better since we saw her. It's been too long._

_ I love you,_

_ Ay_

_P.S. Three months, Ranger station number one of Picacho Peak State Park. The note will be taped behind a rack of brochures if we can't make it._

* * *

><p><em>Ay—<em>

_ It was actually tricky to find this spot. I didn't know exactly where the state park is, so I had to figure that out. Then there were the difficulties with figuring out which Ranger station number one was, then getting to it. Thankfully, there is only one brochure stand, which means that you should find this just fine. I hope that you'll be there when we come back in a few weeks, but I know that I shouldn't get my hopes up too much. I'll just be disappointed if I do._

_ Anyway, I hope that you've been careful, especially if you're sneaking around in the worms' facilities. I know that they're not suspicious, but isn't that a little bit risky? I know, it's too much to hope for that you won't take risks. I just hope that they're worth it. I understand what you're doing, but don't let yourself get caught. Getting caught would be the end of your chances to find your brothers again. Remember that._

_ The letters never leave bag unless I'm rereading them. And there's a drawing for you on the back of this. Gabby and I have been moving around a lot more than usual, and she's been drawing a sunset almost every night. She wants to see different parts of the country, but I've been telling her that we need to stick around here so that we can hopefully meet you again. She wants the postcards too._

_ I wish that you were here so that I could wake up with you in my arms again, and I don't care how sappy it sounds. Make sure that Tanya reads her letter too._

_I love you,_

_ Tyler_

* * *

><p><em>Tyler—<em>

_ I hope that Gabby appreciates the post card and that you like this letter, because it's going to be a while until the next one. I don't know exactly how long we'll be anywhere or when, but we're heading east to D.C. There wasn't much to go on in Phoenix, only one other disappearance that we didn't know about in the state. I'm hoping that D.C. will have more records. And we're going to try and stop to search as many places as possible on the way._

_ So in six months, we'll be in D.C. and there will be a letter for you taped onto Lincoln's left hand in the Lincoln Memorial._

_ I know, it's a long time, but I think this might be successful. I think that we might actually be able to achieve something here. It's going to take a more complicated plan to get into the records there, though. We'll have to scout the building. It's going to take time, and that's why we need six months, not to mention getting there without being spotted, even with a car. We're still trying to only move at night. See, we really are being careful, and it's not only when Tanya reminds me to._

_ Gabby's drawing is amazing. I actually taped it up inside the car, on one of the back seat windows. I wish that we had a fridge to attach it to with a magnet or something, like we could have before all of this, but this way will just have to do. At this rate I'm going to have to steal some more tape._

_ I really miss not having to do most of the driving, too. It's exhausting. Not that I only miss you because of that, of course. You've been taking care of yourself, too, I hope. I know that you keep telling me to be careful, but I want to make sure that you're doing the same thing. If you aren't, then I'm going to be really pissed off when I finally see you again. It really has been too long._

_ I'm sorry about all of this, I really am, but you know how important it is to me. I know that I've said it before, and I'll probably keep saying it, too. I just need to do this, and I'm going to do whatever it takes; I will try not to get myself taken, though. I think that might put a bit of a crack into my plans. Yeah, I know that I shouldn't joke about that. I love you so much, and I wish that I could actually say it to your face and hear you say it back._

_ Love,_

_ Ay_

* * *

><p><em>Ay—<em>

_ It's been far too long since I've seen anything from you. I hope that you make it to this drop to actually see me, not only leave a note, but I know that that probably won't happen. It's been more than a year, Ay. It was a year more than a month ago._

_ God, I sound so heartsick. I just hope that you miss me as much as I miss you. I can hardly remember the color of your eyes now, other than blue. You'd think that that would be good enough, too, but it really isn't. Anyway, just try your best to make your way back to us soon, or to us find you again._

_ And Tanya, I'm sorry for all the gooey stuff if you're reading this over Ay's shoulder, but it's really your own fault. I miss you and love you. I'm glad that you're being careful as well. Keep going with that train of logic. It's so much better than jumping into every situation without thinking, and I speak from experience._

_I hope that we'll finally all be together again soon. Love,_

_ Tyler_

_P.S. Gabby loves the post cards. I think she's drawn each of them two or three times by now, in varying colors. Is there any chance that you have some more? _

* * *

><p>So it's been a while. Vacation was surprisingly busy and back to school and we're rushing around because it's the end of first semester and Midyears are next week and kill me now.<p>

Anyway, that's why it's been a while, that and this chapter was harder to write, because there was actually so _little_ that happened. And I couldn't just write fluff to fill it up, either. It's a bit shorter than usual, but that's because I didn't think that you'd want it to end on a cliff-hanger.

The next chapter has a bit more action, too, I promise. But while you're waiting for it you should review this one. *nudge, nudge, wink, wink*


	22. Lost

Chapter 21

Lost

**Department of Records, Washington, D.C.**

**Tanya**

I looked over my shoulder for what seemed like the thirtieth time in half that many minutes. I had thought that I had heard footsteps again, but I was just being paranoid. It was obvious that Aqua and I were the only ones here. The Souls were too unsuspecting of humans running around, too secure in their own power, and too trusting of their own kind to think that anyone would ever break into a government facility.

We had been scouting the building for a week, watching the workers and figuring out their habits. There were about four dozen employees. They all arrived between eight and nine in the morning and left between five and six in the evening, taking a break for lunch any time between eleven and two. There was just one who stayed until seven every evening to lock up the building using a special card that only he had.

Our plan had been easy enough to make from there. Aqua had broken into a house one afternoon to find something to put somebody to sleep. It had been easy enough. In the medicine cabinet she had found a white cannister with the word "Sleep" written across it in black lettering, much like the other alien medications. From there, I had figured it out.

Only an hour ago I had told the man locking up that I was having trouble starting my car. Being the kind and generous Soul that he was, he had followed me willingly into a back alley where Aqua had been waiting with the Sleep. With one spray he was out and she had caught him. We had laid him down next to a dumpster and covered him with a trash bag, after giving him another spray of Sleep for good measure.

I brought my mind back to the task at hand, trying not to think about the catastrophe that would break loose if he were to wake up before we were out of the building. The records, however, were a bit of a maze to find. The Souls kept all of them in digital format, but the computers had all been powered down for the night, and while we could turn them back on, we didn't want to risk the extra light and the possibility that they could figure out that they had been on during the night, which was very likely.

It had taken us more than half an hour to find the most recent records of human sightings. They were kept in a back corner, and while the area was well-organised and taken care of, it was obviously meant to be a bit less obvious than some of the others. Apparently, the aliens didn't like it when too many people knowing how many humans had been sighted since their takeover, or how often we seemed to escape their clutches. Aqua had figured that she had last seen her brothers almost four and a half years ago, so she started then, and I started at the present, and we slowly worked our way towards each other.

I skimmed over another document and looked over my shoulder once more. It was almost a nervous tic at this point. I sighed and put the flimsy sheet of paper back. The sighting had been of a middle-aged woman, so that was useless to us.

I grabbed the next one. I was back to almost two years ago at this point, but Aqua was only about a year after their separation. It seemed as though sightings of us had rapidly decreased over the years as more and more of us had been wiped out. Either that, or we had gotten far better at hiding and sneaking around. Three more reports went by, along with three more glances over my shoulder, and I started to develop a crick in my neck. The next report looked promising towards the beginning, describing two boys with dark hair, but then they mentioned that they were very different heights, and I put it back in its place again. Another half hour passed, along with twenty more reports and fifteen more glances over my shoulder.

Suddenly I heard Aqua gasp in surprise. I looked up to see her knuckles white with tension as she gripped a report tightly between her fingers. "This is it..." she whispered. I gently took it from her hands to read.

_Two males in their early twenties were spotted an hour outside of Portland Oregon off of Interstate 3. Both with blue eyes and black hair and of similar tall builds, likely related. Spotted in a convenience store by the manager, who noticed that neither had the scars from an insertion. They managed to escape custody by knocking the manager unconscious before he could call for assistance. He later said in his statement that one had said "Now we've done it. We should never have gone home. They'll be on alert now. I hope she doesn't go. They'll just follow her to the spot and find us all."_

_It is assumed that they were speaking of a coconspirator, and possibly several others in hiding, but no proof of the existence of others connected to the pair has ever been found. It is believed that the store manager suffered a small amount of brain damage from the incident._

I looked up at her with a grin. "This is definitely what we need," I said.

"But it doesn't tell us anything," Aqua sighed. "It's just the manager's imagination."

"You can't believe everything written in a report. Governments like to cover things up, and I doubt that the Souls have managed to get rid of that. They probably actually said this," I countered.

"Then they went home," Aqua said in a whisper. "There's something there, something that we need to find, that will tell us where they are." She was getting too loud, her voice rising a little bit more with every word.

"Where would whatever they left for you be? At you house, your high school, a park...?" I questioned her in a hushed tone, hoping that she would follow my lead.

"Probably at the house. Either that or the Lincoln High-that was our school-soccer fields. We all spent a lot of time there. They would probably at least go by there for nostalgia's sake, if they were already taking the risk of going to the house anyway," she answered, her voice lowered once my. I took a moment to listen for any other people and to glance over my shoulder once more.

"Alright. Ay, we should get out of here," I told her nervously. This time I could have sworn that I could hear footsteps moving around not too far away from us.

"Sure," she said. She went to put back the record before pausing. "Should we take this with us?" she asked.

"No. If we take that one specifically they'll know exactly what we were looking at. If they just see that we were looking through these records it won't be so bad. At least, they'll just think that we're looking for humans, rather than anyone in particular."

"Right," she replied shakily, putting the record back in its place. I straightened out the shelves a bit, trying to make them look as neat as they had been before.

With one last look at the shelves of documents, we made our way towards the exit, staying in the maze-like rows of shelves, keeping to the darkest shadows, our flashlights that we had been using to read off and stowed in our pockets.

I heard a creak of a floorboard and grabbed Ay, preventing her from leaving our row. I held a finger to my lips as she looked at me and she nodded grimly. We both stood there, holding our breath and listening for the sign of another person in the building. The shelves seemed to loom over us, and every shadow that I saw looked like another person. After almost of a minute of silence, I let out my breath and Aqua signalled for me to move past her into the open area between our shelves and the next set.

I did, sprinting the ten-or-so feet in three steps and turned to tell her to do the same, only for my mouth drop open in horror. There was somebody with a flashlight going around the far end of the shelves. The beam turned and fell across Aqua's back, her shadow stretching across the gap between us like a terrifying, warped version of herself. She seemed to turn around in slow motion.  
>"HUMAN!" the voice yelled.<p>

There was no reply, so I assumed that they were alone. Even though I was sure that we could take him, I prefered to keep this nonviolent, and went back to grab Aqua and run. Together we ran through the aisles, and I could hear the alien pursuing us, the beam of his flashlight swinging back and forth, causing our shadows to constantly change shape and shelves to seemingly appear out of nowhere.

Aqua was running ahead of me now and I checked over my shoulder to see how far away our pursuer was. I turned back as soon as I was sure that he wasn't gaining on us, only to see myself come to the end of the row. Ay had kept on running, and I didn't know which way she had gone. I'd lost her.

It only took me a second to choose what to do from there. I cut to the right, hoping that I had gone the same way that she had. The red glowing exit sign seemed to flare dramatically bright as it entered my vision. I sprinted harder, breath tearing from my lungs, legs burning as I wove back up a row, hoping that my pursuer would head towards the exit. I ran down to the end of the row and ducked around the edge of the shelves just as the beam of light passed by. I saw him, then, as he slowed, no longer able to see either of the people who he had been chasing. He was tall, but not powerfully built, and as he shined his light down the row I ducked my face back around the edge.

I held my breath, and listened, my pulse pounding in my ears. It was a few seconds before he moved on to the next row and I released my breath. I was suddenly aware of the fact that I had no idea where Aqua was, and that she had probably already left the the building. I waited there, completely still, afraid to move in case the man looking for us came back to this row.

It was ten minutes before I heard the door to the stairs open and close again, and I could no longer see any sign of his flashlight. I cautiously left my temporary safety and made my way across the wooden floor as silently as I could.

I reached the opposite end of the row and saw the exit sign once more. There was still no sign of the Soul.

Within five minutes I was down the three flights of stairs and out the door. Ten minutes later, I was hijacking a car from a quiet neighborhood street. Within another thirty minutes I was out of the city limits. I didn't have Aqua, but I did have my life, my mind was still my own, and I had the information that I needed. If I knew Aqua at all, and I liked to think that I did, she would be out of the city as well, hopefully after leaving a note for Tyler at the Lincoln Memorial to help them find her once more.

She was going to find my brother and sister, and I was going to find her brothers. And then I would find them... or at least help her to find us.

* * *

><p><strong>Aqua<strong>

I had lost Tanya. Tyler was going to kill me.

_Tyler-_

_The factory at Hershey Park. Two weeks from the first night that you see this. I know what we need to do. See you then._

_-Aqua_

I ran back to the car, trying to escape my own thoughts.

* * *

><p>Sorry about this chapter being such a long time coming. Basically, I had midyears, and then my computer crashed and I lost all of my planning stuff for this story, so that sucked. Then I was in no mood to try to figure it out again. Then, when I finally got around to that I had to rework my timeline a bit, because the last leg of the story, where we are now, was just taking too long to pan out.<p>

Basically, I sped it up a little bit, and here's the chapter... finally...

There WILL be another one sometime next week. It is already most of the way written, and I will have it edited and up by next Saturday at the latest, and hopefully Friday because I'll have the day off of school. Anyway, enough of this!

You should review because you're so happy that I finally updated XD.


	23. Reunited

Chapter 22

Reunited

**3 Days Later, West Virginia**

**Tanya**

I had made a lot of progress for three days, but there was a while to go until Oregon. I had made a raid as soon as possible, in a secluded place in the mountains. There wasn't much there for clothes that I could wear, but I had enough food for a few more days now, and a toothbrush and a few gallons of water and that sort of thing.

I would probably stop in a few more days, once I found a spot that would be more useful for what I needed. At this point, I just needed to put some more distance between myself and Aqua. I had been thinking about what her brothers had said according to that store manager, and they had mentioned _others._ That meant that they must have found more people, and that was... that was crazy, almost impossible to imagine.

I needed to find them, to find the rest of the humans. I was desperate.

* * *

><p><strong>1 Month Later, Hershey, Pennsylvania<strong>

**Aqua**

It was a full moon, and the bright light was a little bit off-putting to me as I stood in the abandoned parking lot. The aliens were apparently not so into smoking factories and fossil fuels, so the place had been empty for years. I felt exposed, sitting out there in the moonlight, where anybody could see me if they happened to drive by. Hopefully if that did happen they would just think that I was enjoying the night-time air... or something ridiculous like that.

A pang of nerves shot through my stomach. Tyler was going to kill me for losing his sister. I had been so careful, and we had planned it so well... but it was too good to be true that everything would go according to plan. Something always went wrong. I heard the sound of a car, the engine cutting through the quiet of the night.

There were no headlights, but I watched as it turned into the parking lot and pulled up a few spots away from me. My knuckles were white from the strain as I gripped the edge of the car's hood with anxiety. The other car's door opened and closed, and his silhouette was familiar. My breathing sped up as he stepped away from the shadow of the car and into the light of the moon. It was Tyler. It was definitely Tyler.

I grinned hugely, all of my thoughts of his anger and disappointment gone at the sight of him, and I jumped off of the hood of the car, landing lightly on the ground. He took out a flashlight and checked my eyes before returning my grin. We slowly stepped towards each other, and then in a flash his arms were around me and my feet were no longer on the ground and he was spinning me around him. His arms were tight, crushing me in their strength, but I didn't really care.

I turned my head into his neck and smiled even more as he let me down. His arms stayed around my waist and I left my around the back of his neck. Suddenly his lips were on mine, and it was urgent and rough and not at all what I had imagine our first kiss seeing each other again to be, but it was wonderful all the same. His lips moved to my jaw and neck and ear. "Aqua," he whispered. He lifted his head again and looked down into my eyes. "I thought for sure, that after your last note, that something had gone wrong, but you're okay. You're perfect. Is Tanya in the car?"

And at the sound of her name I burst into tears.

* * *

><p><strong>Tyler<strong>

Suddenly, Aqua was sobbing into my shirt. I tightened my arms around her waist and held her closer to me, murmuring "it's okay" into her ear.

"I'm so sorry, Tyler," she cried.

"What? You're sorry? For leaving? It's alright, you're back now," I promised her.

"No," she pulled back, wiping her eyes. "I lost Tanya," she whispered, looking at the ground. I looked at her, what she had said yet to sink in. "I lost her. We were running... through the department of records-chased-and I thought that she was right behind me, but she must have turned the wrong way and I had to leave before he c-caught me."

She was crying again. "I w-waited by the car for almost two hours, but it was starting to g-get light out and I w-was worried that people would see me... so I l-left."

I looked at her in horror. Then I looked back at her car. There was nobody else in it, no Tanya watching us from the front seat, ready to get out and give Gabby and me hugs, or smirking at my reunion with Aqua.

Aqua. "How could you have lost her? Have left her there?" I asked her, more harshly than I had meant to.

"I didn't know what to do," she whispered. "I couldn't find her. We had just found a record that had to have been my brothers. It was a store manager outside Portland. They broke in and he found them and he heard them talking and they knocked him out. We found the record, and then there was somebody chasing us and we ran, and she was right behind me, but she must have lost me in the dark. I didn't know where she could have gone."

"You could have waited for her," I told her.

"I did, I told you... but it was getting light out. I couldn't risk myself to find her and leave you never knowing what had happened," she said, meeting my eyes again.

I nodded. I didn't have anything else to say to her. "I'm going to go tell Gabby," I said, turning away and walking the few feet back to the car.

Gabby was sitting in the front, and from the look in her eyes, she had obviously already figured out some of what had happened. I kept forgetting that she was almost fourteen now, not the naive eight-year-old she had been when we had left home.

I opened the door and climbed inside, turning to face her as well as I could inside the car, willing myself not to turn around to see Aqua standing there. Even through the car window I could feel her gaze on my back.

"Tanya's gone. Aqua doesn't know where she is. They got separated in the Department of Records and she didn't turn up at the car before the morning, so Aqua had to leave," I explained quickly, wishing that I could put off the inevitable, but knowing that I couldn't, and didn't want to, keep a secret from Gabby. Not one that was this big.

Gabby nodded. "I thought so. As soon as I saw Aqua's face after you two broke apart I knew. It would have been too good to be true for them both to come back safely along with the information that we need to find Aqua's brothers," she told me. I looked down, trying to take in how much my littlest sister had changed. She was as adult as I had been when we had left home, and she probably had more responsibility on her shoulders as well. She obviously took my silence the wrong way, though. "They did find it, right? They found it before they had to leave?"

"Yes, I think so. I don't know exactly. I wanted to tell you first, before we thought about what to do next. It sounds like we have to go to Portland," I reassured Gabby.

"If we have to we will, right?"

I didn't say anything.

"Tyler. We're going to help Aqua get her brothers back. I know that you're hurting about Tanya, and that you're probably a bit angry with Aqua right now, even if you haven't figured it out yourself yet, but what do you think Tanya's doing right now?" she asked me.

I knew Tanya better than anyone. She would finish what she had started, and probably faster than we would. It was easier to travel alone. If she had made it out then she was already on her way. If we found Aqua's brothers, we would find Tanya. "She's finding them," I said.

"I think so, too," Gabby said. "Now, let's go talk to Aqua and find out what she knows."

"I don't know if I can talk to her like I normally would yet."

"Then I'll talk. You can just sit there and show her that you're not going to ignore her." I grumbled. I didn't really want to be near her, even though I knew that it was completely unreasonable. "Look, Tyler, she's probably been worrying about your reaction for weeks, and all you're doing is making her think that all of her exaggerating is going to come true and that you'll hate her forever. She loves you, remember? And you love her. So stop being an idiot and start acting like a grown-up."

"You're too smart for your own good," I mumbled.

She smiled and hugged me as best she could in the car. "I'll always be your little sister, Ty, but I'm not eight anymore," she reminded me.

"I know. You've grown up so much."

She shrugged. "Well somebody had too, especially since you're still acting like a child," she said. I stuck my tongue out at her and she laughed. "Now go tell that girl that you love her and aren't going to kick her to the curb."

"Yes, Mom," I said sarcastically.

We both sobered up a bit at that as memories of home flooded my mind. I could still remember Mom's smile and how she would drive any one of us home from practice before I got my license, even if it meant that she had to miss the end of her last meeting at work. I remembered how Dad wouldn't even get up to go to the bathroom unless it was a commercial break during the World Series every year.

"We'll find Tanya," Gabby said. "I know it. Until then, however, I'm going to make the most of having Aqua back."

With that, she hopped out of the car and walked around. I watched as Aqua looked at her nervously, watched the worry drop from her face as Gabby stepped closer, pulling her into a hug despite her smaller frame. They stayed that way for a minute before separating.

I climbed out of the car again, closing the door behind me with a solid thunk that got their attention. Gabby discreetly stepped away and went around to the other side of Aqua's car, giving us a semblance of privacy once more.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"It wasn't your fault. I-my brain hadn't caught up to the rest of me yet. You were there to blame, so I blamed you," I told her.

"Ah."

"Look, Ay, I love you, alright, and I love Tanya. I'd rather have one of you here than neither of you."

"We'll find her, Ty. I'll go back into the city if I have to-"

"No, if I know her at all than she's already long gone. She's probably half-way across the country by now at least," I added. Aqua still looked confused. "She's gone looking for your brothers, Ay. She'll find them first, probably, and we'll find all three of them together."

"That sounds good," she said, taking a few steps closer to me, a smile starting to creep across her face once more.

"Good." I took another step.

She closed the distance between us and I wrapped my arms around her like I had before. She bent her head to rest on my shoulder. "I love you too," she whispered in my ear.

* * *

><p>Here's another chapter for you, and in just a week and a half! It's a bittersweet one, I must say, and I know that Aqua's a bit overly emotional and that's making her a little bit out of character. I hoped you like it, and you should review!<p>

On another note, I'm starting a tumblr for my fanfiction, which can be found here: .com

So far, there is nothing posted, but I'm queuing (or asleep, or writing) as you read this. You should check it out and follow me, and that's the end of the shameless self-promotion. Once again, please review! I really do love seeing them in my inbox!


	24. Clues

Chapter 23

Clues

**2 Weeks Later, Portland, Oregon**

**Tanya**

My first stop was the closest library to Lincoln High School. It was risky to go into a place that could very well be filled with Souls in the middle of the day, but they wouldn't be suspicious of me, even if I kept on my sunglasses. The library was well-lit, so it wasn't entirely strange, but it was nothing like what I remembered libraries being like before they had taken over.

The lines of shelves were gone, replaced with touch screen monitors in the walls, and other monitors set up on desks with an alien-looking keyboard that I didn't know how to use. I stepped nervously up to the front desk, where two middle-aged Souls were speaking in quiet tones. Other than the two of them and myself, there were only half a dozen people in the library, which suited me perfectly well.

"Excuse me, but do either of you know whether I would be able to read old newspaper articles from before our colonization of the planet? I'm writing a paper on the differences between the human's high school sports events ours, and I need primary documents to source for more information," I explained, trying to sound a little bit shy, but not nervous.

"Of course," the woman said before the man had a chance to answer. "If you'll follow me, I can get you set up on one of the computers. We've kept all of the human's records on hand for anyone to read at any time." The keys clicked under her fingers as she typed and I watched the screens change quickly. "Is there anything that you want to look at specifically?"

What was on the screen at the moment was obviously a high school football game, cheerleaders jumping on the sidelines, and the stands filled with parents and students alike. The pictures were in black and white.

"Is there anything on the athletes specifically... profiles, what they kept in their lockers and that sort of thing? I'm trying to focus on the glorification of the athletes then compared to the lack of high school hierarchy present now," I requested.

"Of course." She typed some more, and after a few more flashing changes of the screen. "There you are," she concluded with a flourish towards the screen. "If you want to sift through the articles one by one, just press this button to move onto the next one, and if you want to click on any specifically, just tap them on the screen."

"Thank you," I mumbled with a shy smile. She smiled down at me as though she had never seen anyone more adorable. I wanted to retch-in less than a week I would be nineteen, after all-but I resisted. Retching at a sweet smile probably wasn't exactly a Soul-like thing to do.

She walked back to the desk and I turned to the screen, reading the blurbs of the most recent articles. I wished that I could have had her search for Aqua specifically, but that would have been too suspicious, even for Souls. I read through the first few article blurbs before realizing that this wasn't going to do me any good. Soccer was a fall sport, and I wasn't about to find anything when I was looking at articles dated during May. I skipped through several articles until I reached November. There was an interview with the captain and coach of the football team, then an article about the senior cheerleaders, a list of achievements for the fall sports teams of each of the schools in Portland.

Finally, I found something that looked plausible: _Family Legacy Continues With Sophomore MVP_

I tapped it and the new page opened. And there it was. A picture of a younger Aqua with a look of intense concentration on her face as she scored a goal. The article, however, wasn't very long.

_Aqua O'Shea has dominated this year's girl's varsity soccer team at Lincoln High School. After making the team as a freshman, the talented striker has carried on the legacy of her two older brothers, both of whom have now graduated. Despite the team's loss this year in the final, Aqua was awarded MVP, nominated voted for by her teammates and coaches._

_Kyle O'Shea, her oldest brother, was..._

I stopped reading at that point. That wasn't going to help me. Her brothers would have left clues somewhere important to her, not to one of them. I went through the articles more slowly now, tapping through them one by one, looking for any articles that mentioned the girl's soccer team. She reached September before she found another mentioning Aqua, and it wasn't about the soccer team specifically. Instead, it was just a list of the varsity teams for that fall season, with profiles of one of two people from each team.

I shook my head in disgust. This school's entire newspaper must have focused on sports. This article would have been several pages long on print. On the other hand, it was a good thing for me. Aqua was one of the profiled students.

_Name: Aqua O'Shea_

_Age: 15_

_Position: Striker_

_Number: 23_

_Height: 5'7" "And still growing," she added, when asked._

_Q: What do you like to do other than soccer?_

_A: I like to run and listen to music, hang out with my friends, and bother my brothers._

_Q: What sorts of things do you have in your locker?_

_A: Honestly, not a lot, but I always have extra hair ties, pencils, paper, half a dozen chocolate bars. And I keep meaning to put up some of my postcards-I have one from every state-but I haven't gotten around to it yet. And in my sports locker I've got pictures of famous players for inspiration._

_Q: Your number is 23, correct? Is there anything important in that for you?_

_A: Yeah, actually. It's my sports locker number, as well as the date of my birthday and my mom's and the number of stitches I've had._

_Q: Where do you want to be in five years?_

_A: College, I guess, hopefully playing soccer still, but I've got no idea what I want to study._

_Q: Alright, just one more question, then. How are you feeling about the team this year?_

_A: I'm ecstatic! I think that this could really be our year to win, and these girls are some of my best friends. I love being part of this team and I'm super excited for this season to really get going!_

I left that window open, but went back to see if any of the other articles from that fall or the previous one caught my eye. I wondered if I could get the article printed out. I opened a few others at random, including the other one that mentioned Aqua, and then went back to the desk again. "Excuse me, but I was wondering if I could have hard copies of any of the articles that I need. They're extremely informative, but it would be even better if I could take them with me?" I requested politely, painting a simpering smile onto my face.

"Of course, dear," the woman reassured me. She trotted over to the computer once more. "These are all of the articles that you wanted?"

I nodded. With a few swift taps of the keys she was finished. She went back to the desk and I followed her. She handed me the small stack of papers and I took them. "Thank you so much for all of your help," I told her, partially because it was a Soul-like thing to do, and partially because I really meant it. The irony was almost killing me, though. She had unknowingly just helped me, a human, to find the evidence that I needed to find another group of humans and reunite two of them with their (also still human) sister.

"It was no trouble, dear. I'm happy to help any young historian such as yourself. I hope that we'll have a chance to stock your book when it's written," she told me sincerely. I smiled shyly at her once more before leaving the library. I stopped immediately outside, sorting through the pages of printed articles to find the two mentioning Aqua. Carefully, I folded the two sheets and put them into the front pocket of my jeans.

Shivering slightly from the damp chill of the Portland air, I zipped my jacket and walked to my stolen car. I hadn't locked it-the Souls never did-so I clambered in and pushed the key into the ignition. The engine started easily and I buckled my seatbelt before pulling out of the library's parking lot. Tonight, I had to find somewhere to sleep. Tomorrow night, I would break into the Lincoln High School girl's locker rooms.

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><p><strong>1 Day Later, Lincoln High School<strong>

That I was eager to get this over with was an understatement. I knew that the old (pre-invasion) locker rooms would be unlocked, and I knew that it wouldn't really be difficult to sneak onto the grounds of a high school, but it was dark and cold and silent and Aqua wasn't there with me like she had been when we had done this before.

I repressed the urge to look over my shoulder, knowing that it was just my imagination running away with me. There was nobody on the grounds but me. The old locker rooms were abandoned, like many of the pre-invasion buildings that had been out of date then. They had been replaced by a new state-of-the-art building across the field, but nobody had gotten around to destroying them yet-probably because the Souls didn't particularly like destruction of property, even when it was an eyesore that nobody cared about any longer.

The door creaked when I opened it. The building was dark and musty, and it was obvious that nobody had been inside for several months, if not years. Dust covered the ground, muffling my footsteps as I entered. It was too dark to see, and I was forced to remove my flashlight from my pocket. Despite its small size, I felt like it was a beacon, that at any moment Seekers were going to hone in on it and find me.

I took a deep breath before venturing farther into the dark room. I swung my little beam of light towards the walls, looking for the lockers. This, however, appeared to be plain hallway. Walking farther in, I realized, mentally cursing myself out for my stupidity, that the building held both the boys' and girls' locker rooms. The girls entrance was on the right. This door swung open more easily than the first, pushing the dust on the other side out of the way easily.

I let out a breath of relief. This room's walls were lined with lockers. It didn't take me long to find number 23. Unlike the others, some of which showed signs of rust, but most of which were merely dusty, it was noticeably damaged. The area around the lock was dented, probably bashed in so as to open the locker. My nerves were almost forgotten now as I walked quickly towards the locker. It took a bit of tugging, but within a minute I had it open. Inside was an envelope, Aqua written on the front in messy script. I opened the envelope carefully so as to ensure that nothing inside would rip.

I dumped the contents out into the bottom of the locker. There were only four things inside. One was a piece of paper on which a series of wavy lines were drawn. The next was an advertisement for the Picacho Peak convenience store with a note that simply stated "_Start Here."_ The next was a postcard of a barren red dessert with Arizona written across it in bold colorful lettering. The last was a note.

_Ay-If you're reading this then that means that you've either been taken and for some reason came here, or that you're still you and you've decided to look for us. We're safe, we have been for months, and we hope that we will be for a long time. Follow the lines. Bring lots of water. We can't tell you any more than that._

_Love, Ian and Kyle, you favorite brothers._

I smiled, put all four things back into the envelope, and stuffed it into the large pocket of my jacket. I needed to copy all of this down, but I couldn't do it by the light of my flashlight. I would have to wait until morning and come back the next night. My mind spinning, I closed the locker again as well as I could and fled the school grounds.

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><p>Yeah, it's been a while since I've updated *coughfourmonthscough.* Anyway, I promise that this story is going to be finished. Chapter 24 is finished, and the first scene of Chapter 25 is done. I'm estimating four or five more chapters total in this story, with high probability of a sequel, just so you know!<p>

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please keep reading and reviewing (especially since reviews will encourage me to write more)!


	25. Desert

Chapter 24

Desert

**6 Weeks Later, Picacho Peak, Arizona**

**Tanya**

The day after I visited the school, I visited another library where I copied all of what I had and constructed a makeshift envelope for my new additions, as well as writing my own note. That night, I returned to Aqua's old locker, put the original copies of the things from her brothers and my note, as well as the copies of the articles.

For the next month and a half I traveled, first east, away from the more populated areas, before heading South. It was lucky that the weather was warmer the farther south she ventured, because sleeping outside in Portland hadn't been pleasant, and that had only been for a few short nights.

Now, though, I knew that I was close. I could practically taste the end of this mess approaching in the dry heat of the desert. I stopped my car. The sunlight was beating down, so my sunglasses were still an easy disguise, as long as I didn't act out. The picture on my copy of the advertisement for the Picacho Peak convenience store was identical to what I was standing in front of. It was small a gas station, with a little store and one lone Soul manning the cash register. The only difference was that in my picture he was standing and smiling outside the station, while he was obviously inside and out of the sun at the moment.

With a deep breath, I opened the door of the convenience store and stepped into the cool interior. Smiling serenely at the man behind the counter as he looked towards the sound of the bell above the door ringing, I stepped towards the aisles. There were shelves of candy and protein bars and granola and energy drinks-normal human things-right beside the strange looking Soul medicines that Aqua had introduced us to.

They worked, though. I looked over the labels, grabbing Clean, Heal, Seal, and Cool. I wasn't sure whether the Cool would work on overheating the same way that it did on fevers, but it was worth a shot. It wasn't like I would have to pay for anything. I found a basket to put my purchases in, and dropped the white cylinders in, before moving on to food. I was almost out, but I didn't think that canned foods would be quite right for the rest of my journey. I grabbed some granola bars, trail mix, bags of unsalted nuts and a few pieces of fruit.

I brought my basket up to the front and put it onto the counter before grabbing two flats of twenty-four disposable water bottles each. I wouldn't be able to carry it all, but hopefully I would be able to drive a ways before my car died.

"What brings you here?" the Soul behind the counter asked as he scanned the bar codes of all of my items.

"I'm hoping to do some hiking, actually. There aren't many trails around here, but the views of the desert are absolutely mind-blowing," I gushed.

"They are," he agreed. He was done scanning my items as well. "Do you need to fill your car up as well?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, I do," I said with a smile. "Actually, I was wondering if you can any containers that I could fill with extra gas. I'm going to be driving a long way without a station and I don't think I'll run out, but it's not a risk that I want to take," I told him. It wasn't even a lie.

"Of course. That won't be a problem at all," he promised. He followed me outside, and as I filled up my car he went around the side of the station, returning with several containers that each would probably hold three gallons of gas. I finished filling the car and he filled the containers for me.

"Thank you so much for your help," I said with a smile.

"Your welcome. Would you like help bringing your things out?"

"Well, since you are offering..."

When my food, water, and medicines were all safely stowed in the backseat of the car, the gas in the trunk, I climbed in and started the engine. The Soul waved as I drove away and I waved back, smiling. Once I could see that he had gone inside, I pulled off to the side of the road and took the paper with the lines on it from my pocket. I practically had them all memorized at this point, but I wanted to make sure. Just as I had thought, the first line (a ragged line, four zigzags up and down, and then a broken zigzag), matched almost perfectly with the line of the mountain range to the northeast.

As far as I could tell, the roads around here were few and far between. It wouldn't be worth my time to try to find one that headed in the right general direction, especially since I would most likely have to turn off of it as soon as I saw the second line (almost a wave that ended with a finger-like protrusion). I would just have to drive off-road. Well, it would be interesting, that was certain.

Rather than putting the paper away again, I left it on the seat next to me, partially because it was a bitch to keep getting it out and replacing it, but mostly so that I could just look at it every now and then for reassurance that I was still heading in the right direction.

With that, I turned off the road.

* * *

><p><strong>2 Days Later, The Middle of the Arizona Desert<strong>

**Tanya**

My first tank of gas had lasted until just after I had spotted the fourth segment of skyline. I had wasted half a container of the refill gas figuring out how to get the nozzle in so that I could fill my tank, and the half tank from those had only gotten me near the fifth mark. That was two days of navigating the rough terrain of the desert, avoiding ditches and cacti equally. This was equivalent to twelve water bottles. The gas, while I could still use the car, was more valuable to me than the water, so I hadn't used the air conditioning very much in order to conserve it, getting by with leaving the windows open to catch the wind most of the time.

After climbing out of the now useless car, I gathered all of the supplies that I had. These consisted of a backpack, three shirts, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, some underwear, toilet paper, a dozen granola bars, four packages of nuts, the Soul medicines, a flashlight, two knives (both with sheaths), two books of matches, and three dozen bottles of water.

I grabbed two shirts, the shorts, and the underwear, and stuffed them in the bottom, followed by the toilet paper and the medicine. I strapped one knife to my belt by ripping up and braiding the last shirt into makeshift rope. I stuffed the remnants of the shirt along with the second knife in next. The flashlight went into my pocket where all of the papers from Portland already were, followed by one book of matches. The other one went into the backpack.

I quickly downed one of the bottles of water, knowing that I couldn't carry it all anyway. The food went in next, except for one packet of nuts and one granola bar that I was going to eat right away. Then I stuffed as much water into the pack as I could, which turned out to be eighteen of the bottles. I lifted the pack and put it down again. It was heavy, but that would change more quickly than I wanted it to as I drank the water. There were twelve bottles left. I ate the nuts and drank another half bottle of water.

I covered the car as well as I could, though if anybody came closer than a hundred yards they would easily be able to tell that it wasn't natural. I ate the granola bar and finished the other half bottle. Then I grabbed two more to hold. This left me with twenty total, which would hopefully keep me going for a little more than two days, though with the heat of the desert sun beating down on me, that might be a wild hope.

There was nothing else to be done, though, so I walked. And as I walked, I looked around me, taking care to notice the skyline around me, constantly looking around for the last line of mountains, but there was nothing. The early afternoon was hot, my clothes were sweat-stained, and I was certain that the back of my neck was badly sunburned. There was no breeze to counter the unwavering heat, and no signs of animal life other than the occasional droppings that I had to avoid. The animals were obviously sane, and didn't leave their hidey-holes during the day.

I stopped to rest, turning to face west to give my back some relief from the blazing sun. That's when I saw it, the sixth line. It was back to the west, farther than I had driven in the car. For a second, I lost all hope. What energy I had drained out of me. Had they messed up? Were the lines in the wrong order? I clutched at straws that the fifth was actually supposed to be last for a moment, but I knew that I hadn't been wrong, that Aqua's brothers weren't wrong. By now, four bottles of water were gone, leaving me with sixteen, enough for two more days of walking. I would just have to hope that somebody found me before I was dehydrated and left for dead.

For the first time in a few weeks, I felt really and truly lonely. I wanted my brother to be there to hug me even though I teased him, Gabby to hold my hand like she so often had after we had first been forced to flee. And I missed Aqua being there to help me through the stuff that Tyler didn't really get. I felt like I was going to cry so I pushed my hands against my eyes. Even hopeless, I couldn't waste the valuable water that I had in my system.

Eventually, my despair faded and I was able to concentrate again. I was certain that the sixth line of mountains was back to the west, but why bother leading somebody so far to the east only to have them turn around? It was a waste of energy and would probably lead to more loss of human life than the few humans who were left wanted. Then it hit me. The humans were just protecting themselves. What if a Seeker somehow got ahold of these lines? If the lines really led to wherever their hiding place was then they could be found too easily. The lines probably just lead whoever was looking back and forth so that the humans could watch them and choose whether or not to take them in. Well, I was willing to play that game. I stood up and started to walk west.

By sunset I was exhausted. My legs were a mess of bruises, scratches, and aching muscles, and the skin on my face and arms felt like it was on fire. I found a flat spot under a scrawny desert tree and, after fumbling with the zippers of my backpack, I managed to dig out the white canisters of medicine. I squinted at the blocky text that labeled them. I wanted to avoid using my flashlight if possible. Eventually, I found the ones I needed: Clean and Heal. I sprayed my scratches with the Clean, biting my lip at the stinging and wishing that I had also gotten some No Pain, before squirting a generous blob of Heal into my open palm. I rubbed it into my scratches and bruises, reveling in the strange feeling of them closing up and the pain fading away. Then I tried using some on the burning skin of my arms. To my delight, it worked, so I proceeded to rub it into my arms and face like lotion.

Once I was more comfortable, I took out the clothes bundled at the bottom of my backpack and balled them up into something could barely be called a pillow, took my knife out of my belt and put it down beside me, and settled down to sleep, hoping that no animals would be inclined to go after something bigger than them that night.

When I woke up, it was still dark, and there was a light shining into my eyes.

* * *

><p>Aren't you proud? It hasn't even been a week yet, and here's another update for you already! I've got two more chapters written, and as soon as I've written at least a seen of a third, I'll be updating again, so look out for one soon!<p>

I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thank you to everybody who reviewed. Keep them coming! They just make me want to write more. :)

* * *

><p><strong>Alee V<strong>-I think this chapter clears up confusion about the post card, but in case it didn't, Tanya basically photocopied everything in the locker and put the originals back, so Aqua does see it. Thank you so much for reviewing!

**Laura**-Don't worry, the next chapters will definitely be written more quickly! (How could it have been any worse!?) It makes me so happy that you get excited when you see the update email! Thank you tons for the review!


	26. Arrival

Chapter 25

Arrival

**Central California**

**Tyler**

I sincerely hoped that Tanya was making better time than we were. Actually, I just hoped that Tanya was still somewhere ahead of us and that we would see her again. At least we knew that she had been alive a month and a half ago. Gabby, who was asleep in the backseat of the car, held her note clenched in her hand as she had for much of the last week and a half. We hadn't been making progress as quickly as I would have liked, either. There were too many cities to avoid in California, and it was challenging to avoid them, usually involving extensive side routes, which only succeeded in getting us off course.

My eyelids were heavy in the darkness. The whole "traveling by night" thing didn't help my mood or our progress, either, but there were fewer cars-and more importantly, Seekers-on the road. It was safer. I pulled over to the side of the road. Between my exhaustion and his worrying, I couldn't concentrate on the road anymore. Aqua would have to drive. I couldn't wake her immediately, though. Sleep was the only the time that she looked at peace now. Waking, her face would form itself into a mask of anxiety and stress. She seemed to sense the fact that the car had stopped, though, and slowly stirred from her sleep.

"What's wrong?" she asked blearily, rubbing her eyes and stretching her arms in front of her.

"Can't concentrate on driving," I told her.

She looked at me, concern in her eyes now. Her fingertips brushed against my cheeks and I felt my eyes close. "It's no wonder," she murmured. "You look exhausted. You've been doing too much of the driving and too little sleeping."

"I just want to find her-them-already," I corrected, agitated.

She smiled wryly, her worry seeming to ease a little. "I know."

"I'm sorry. Your brothers just don't seem real to me. They're... they're these figures that we've been chasing for so long that I can't see them as anything but that, anything but a goal to reach. Do you know what I mean." I realized that my voice had been gaining my volume, and looked back at Gabby, but she was still fast asleep.

"Honestly, it's been so long since I've really seen them that I feel that way too sometimes, but the article that Tanya found, talking about all three of us helped, and their note. It was Kyle's handwriting. Ian may be the smarter of the two, but nobody can read a word of what he writes. Plus, I have all the memories of them to go along with it."

"Tell me about them," I urged her.

"Well, they're almost identical-you know that-except that Kyle's nose is crooked because of the number of times that it's been broken. He just so often deserved to be punched in the face," she reminisced with a quiet laugh. I grinned at hearing her laugh. None of us had been laughing enough lately. "The first time that he tried to ask out Jodi, who was his girlfriend when the invasion started, she broke his nose and gave him a black eye. She got a week of detention. For the next several months they just kept insulting each other whenever they passed in the halls. Then I found them making out behind the locker rooms. It was disgusting."

"You poor thing," I consoled her, holding back my laughter. She gave me the evil eye.

"What about Ian?" I asked.

"Ian was always more mild-mannered. He had a tendency to think before he spoke, anyway... a mental filter, if you will. He's a sore loser, though. Once, after a match, when Kyle insinuated that he might have been the reason that they lost, Ian punched him in the face, though he only bruised his jaw that time."

I snorted. "Do all of your stories end up with Kyle getting hurt?" I wondered. She shoved my shoulder and stuck her tongue out at me. I yawned widely.

"Come on, let's switch. You need to sleep," she commanded.

Without waiting for an answer she opened her door and stepped out. I did the same and met her in front of the car, wrapping my arms around her waist just to feel it. Her arms wrapped around me as well, and I buried my face in her hair. We stood there for a few minutes before I loosened my arms from around her. She kissed me lightly before getting into the driver's seat. I climbed back in the car and buckled myself in.

"Go to sleep," Aqua urged me as she started the car again. I closed my eyes and I slept.

* * *

><p><strong>The Middle of the Arizona Desert<strong>

**Tanya**

_When I woke up, it was still dark, and there was a light shining into my eyes._

Instinctively, I reached over to grab my knife, only to find that it wasn't there anymore. I reached for the pack that should have been on my other side, but it, too, had been taken away. Then I jumped up, pushing myself back against the scrawny tree under which I had taken shelter and bringing my arms up to form fists in front of me, guarding my face and neck like Tyler had taught me.

"Woah, calm down there," the man holding the light said. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the general lines of his face. To my surprise, he was old, his beard what hair he had left white, his skin weathered by tough living and the son, his body narrow and wiry. He had a rifle strapped over his shoulder, but in his hands he held only the light. He was probably human, but until I had evidence I wasn't about to relax.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"I think I should be asking you that," he replied slowly, "seeing as you're the one snooping, and I'm the one who lives around here." He sighed when he saw that I was still not going to relax. "Fine, then. My name is Jeb Stryder. And I'm human, so don't go attacking me, now. We've got you outnumbered anyway." He swung the light to either side, showing me that I was surrounded. The other three men there were younger, all of them carrying knives or clubs. Jeb seemed to be the only one armed with a gun.

"Let me see your eyes," I commanded. In reality, I knew that I had been looking for humans, and that I had now found them-well, they had found me-but I couldn't let go of the caution that came from being on the run for almost six years without some proof.

Jeb obliged, shining the light into his own eyes, and then those of the three others. They were all clear, no edge of silver, no rings of light reflected onto the sand and rock of the desert beneath our feet. I finally let out a sigh of relief and relaxed my arms, letting them fall back to my sides and stepping away from the tree again.

Jeb pulled his light off of me and towards the ground. I blinked, attempting to force my eyes to readjust to the darkness. "Do you think I could have my things back?" I asked. "Now that you know I'm not going to attack you. And who are the rest of you?"

"Sure thing," Jeb said. "That's Aaron, Brandt, and Jared. Jared, give her things back to her."

The three of them stepped closer now and I could see all of their faces. Brandt was the smallest of the three, though what he lacked in height he made up for in muscle, and he looked like he was probably in his thirties. Aaron was about Tyler's height and age, though with more of a runner's physique than a football player's, and. Jared was the tallest, and the middle in age. He was muscular as well, and at that moment I liked him the most, as he was returning my things to me.

"So, are you willing to tell us your name now?" Jeb questioned after I had comfortably situated my pack on my back and my knife in my belt.

"Right, sorry. I'm Tanya. Tanya Hillad."

Then Jeb started loping off, the rest of them right behind him, assuming that I'd follow him. "Alright then, Tanya. What's your story?"

"Er, could you tell me where exactly we're going first?" I asked him.

"The caves, of course. Where else could almost forty people hide in the middle of a desert?" he responded.

"Forty!?" I asked. The number shocked me. I had thought... maybe ten or fifteen, twenty at the very most. Forty was outrageous. It was hard to believe that so many had survived and found each other. "That's amazing. Forty humans, all in one place. And you haven't been found?"

"We came close, about a year ago. Luckily, it was just one Seeker. Unfortunately, she took one of us with her, and managed to get a shot into Brandt as well, but Doc fixed him up just fine. We're good at keeping hidden, which brings to mind a question. How did you come to be wandering so close to us?"

I reached into my pocket and unfolded the tight bundle of papers that I kept there. The paper with the lines was on the outside. I took it out and showed it to him. His eyes widened. "And how did you come across these? As far as I know, I only gave them to a few relatives, and it seems very unlikely that you came across one of them, as most of them are dead, taken, or hiding underground a few miles away."

"That's a long story," I warned him.

"We've got time," Jeb insisted.

So I told him. I told him about escaping with Tyler and Carson and Gabby. I told him about Carson being taken, and about how we met Aqua. And I told him about Aqua's brothers, and how they'd been separated for a long time when we heard their descriptions. I told him about how the two of us had gone off on our own to find them before getting separated, and how I had made my way first to Portland, and then here. "You use the lines to let you watch people as they approach, don't you?" I asked Jeb.

He nodded, grinning. "That's right. Nobody else has seemed to understand that before." He had been quiet during the rest of the story, though Brandt, Aaron, and Jared had all asked a few questions. Now he paused before continuing. "Well, that certainly is a good story. You're here because of a long time chasing Ian and Kyle. Those two certainly are good at stirring up trouble."

I nodded. "They are actually with you, right? In your caves?"

"They live there, yes, though right now they're out raiding along with a couple of others. They only left a week or so ago, so they won't be back for another month at the least, and more likely closer to two," Jeb explained.

I nodded again. My throat was dry from so much talking, and I swung my pack around to dig for a water bottle. We all walked in silence for a while.

"Is that the only way that you can support forty people? Through the raids?" I asked after a few minutes.

"We could make due without it if necessary, but it's not pleasant. Cave rations and cactus soap just tend to make everybody more irritable. I'll give you the grand tour after you've had some sleep and you'll understand easily enough," Jeb answered.

"Does everybody have a specific job, or do you rotate? How do you get water in the middle of the desert?"

"You're certainly a curious one, aren't you?" Jeb asked, sounding bemused. I blushed and heard Aaron chuckle behind me. I glared at him over my shoulder, but he just shrugged and smirked at me. Jeb continued. "We tend to rotate tasks. It depends on the seasons, too. During planting and harvest times almost everybody is working in the fields, but otherwise there's cooking, washing, expansion of the caves, and raiding. The kids go to school until they're sixteen, we've got two doctors, and there's always plenty of work to go around. There are also springs underground. Some of them are better for drinking water, and there's a big pool for bathing, and more sulfurous, less useful springs for doing your other business," he explained, obviously enjoying telling me about his hideaway.

"Wouldn't it be more productive if everybody had a specific job?" I questioned him.

"It might, but it's not like people don't have specialties. Jared, for example, is our best raider."

"Then why aren't you on this raid?" I asked, directing my question towards him now.

Brandt snorted. "That would be because he knocked up his girlfriend, and she's going to pop sometime in the next two months. She told him that if she wasn't allowed to go on the raid, there was no way in hell that he was allowed to."

"Fuck off, Brandt," Jared grumbled, shoving the shorter man.

I chuckled. "What's her name?"

"Whose? The baby's? We don't even know what gender it is yet," Jared responded.

I snorted. "No, your girlfriend's."

He looked slightly embarrassed. "Oh, right. Mel-Melanie."

"How long have you been together?"

"This time? A little more than a year. About two and a half in total, though. There was a bit of an interruption in the middle."

I could tell that he didn't want to talk about, so I let the end of his sentence hand there.

"You'll have to know the story eventually, but it would be better for somebody more central to tell you, like Melanie," Jeb explained. "I still can't believe that I'm going to be a great uncle."

My curiosity was piqued, but I stopped myself from asking, choosing to latch on to the new topic of conversation that Jeb had oh-so-subtly brought up. "Melanie's your niece?"

"I told you that all my family's dead, taken, or in the caves. My sister Maggie and her daughter Sharon, and well as Melanie and her brother Jamie all live in the caves."

This strain of conversation led to the introduction of more of the people who lived in the caves until I had a general idea of the span of ages and personalities. Freedom was the youngest, and had actually been born in the caves, then Isaiah, then Jamie, who was just a year older than Gabby. Then most of the rest were relatively young, in their twenties, thirties, and forties, though there were a few who must have been around Jeb's age.

By that point my legs felt like jelly. After walking all day and several hours of the night with very little rest and the adrenaline from the excitement gone, I was exhausted. Then I realized that the darkness was becoming more complete, and that we were heading underground. The slope was relatively gentle, but the terrain was rocky and uneven, so I forced myself to pay more attention to my feet. I felt somebody's hand on my arm and almost jumped away, before realizing that I probably needed the guide. They knew these caves. I didn't.

I was led through what felt like a maze of dark tunnels (though luckily the floor seemed to flatten out some), before we neared what seemed to be our destination. I could hear the voices of a couple of others, recognising them as both male and female. Then I could see light ahead, and we ended up inside a well-lit hospital room. There were about half a dozen cots, a few electric lights that must have been solar powered, and some sterile looking medical equipment. In the back of the room I could also see cabinets, one of which was open, revealing a few cannisters of the Soul medicines.

Aaron, who had been the one guiding me, released my arm, and the inhabitants of the room had quieted upon our entrance, all except for the youngest, who must have been Jamie. He was holding the hand of a woman who was a few years older than me and obviously pregnant. "Jared! Uncle Jeb! Aaron! Brandt!" he exclaimed upon seeing them. Then his eyes locked onto me. "So she was human, then. I told you that I thought she was human!"

"Yeah, kiddo, you told us," Jared said with an easy grin, ruffling Jamie's hair. "This is Tanya Hillad. Tanya, the loud one is Jamie, who is holding hands with Melanie, and the other two are Sharon and Doc."

"Nice to meet you, Tanya," Doc said first, followed by Sharon.

Melanie stood up to walk over to me, one hand over her swollen belly. "It's nice to meet you. Hopefully those four haven't prejudiced you against us yet."

I laughed. "They've been perfect gentlemen," I told her.

She snorted. "I highly doubt that."

Jamie was practically bouncing with energy. "It's nice to meet you. We haven't had anyone new in the caves since Candy got here, and that was a year ago," he informed me.

"Well, hopefully I won't be the last new person for a little while. My sister, brother, and his girlfriend should be somewhere behind me. There are three of them, though, so it's probably going to take them longer to get here," I replied.

Luckily Doc stepped in before anybody could ask me too many questions. I was exhausted and sore, and really just wanted to sleep for a few hours, if not a few days. He quickly shooed everybody but Jeb and me from the hospital, before settling me on a cot to check me over. He nodded at my the healing job on my legs, but went and took another canister (Smooth). The powdery substance inside was applied and the marks on my legs vanished completely. The Heal had apparently also worked on my arms and face, and a sunburn wasn't going to scar, so that was the end of his medical examination.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to sleep here tonight. We'll figure out a permanent room for you tomorrow, but it isn't worth waking up half of the caves. You'll just be up longer," Jeb told me.

I nodded, unable to speak while yawning. "I've slept on worse," I managed to get out after a minute.

Doc and Jeb both chuckled. "We all have," Doc said.

"Somebody will get you tomorrow and make sure that you get some food and a bath and clean clothes and things, and then I'll give you the grand tour of the place and we'll figure out somewhere for you to sleep."

I nodded again. With that, Jeb marched off.

Doc wished me a good night before heading off as well, turning the lights off as he went with the cords. Now I could see that the room had cracks running through the ceiling where I could see stars shining in. It made me feel better about sleeping alone in the big room. With that last though, I shoved my pack under a cot, pushed off my shoes with my feet, and settled in for a long sleep.

* * *

><p>Oops! I meant to update a few days ago, but I've been busy obsessing over Doctor Who, which has included learning how to write in Circular Gallifreyan and watching the live stream of the reveal of the twelfth Doctor today. Anyway, here's an extra long chapter for you today. I hope you enjoy it and keep reviewing! They motivate me so much!<p> 


	27. Caves

Chapter 26

Caves

**The Next Morning, Jeb's Caves**

**Tanya**

I almost punched Aaron in the face when he woke me up. For a second, I had forgotten where I was, but then it all came back to me and I sat down on my cot once more.

"Sorry," I told him. "Instinct."

He just shrugged, obviously almost as tired as I was. "No problem. Jeb sent me to make sure that you got food and a bath today, since apparently we're already pals." He snorted at that. Personally, I agreed, though I suppose it was better to be woken by a familiar face.

"What first then?" I asked.

"Your choice."

As soon as he said that, I knew what had to happen first. The bottles of water from the day before were catching up with me. "How about we go wherever the closest place is that will prevent me from pissing myself," I suggested.

He grinned. "That would be the baths then. This time of day there shouldn't be anybody else there, though we'll have to pick some things up for you on the way."

I nodded, bending down to grab my pack from under my cot and slipping it onto my back once more. This time, the caves were lit, in some places by tiny holes and cracks in the ceiling, but by electric lanterns in others, and Aaron didn't need to lead me through the caves by touch. After a few minutes of walking, he stopped us.

It wasn't as much a cave as a man-made storage area. It might have been a cave at one point, but now the walls were squared off and there were different cubbies carved out with all sorts of supplies in them, though most of them were almost empty.

"Thanks to the raids we have plenty of this stuff, though with thirty-seven of us we tend to go through it every few months. Take whatever you want," he told me, standing by the entrance. I looked in awe at all of the different choices, forgetting, for a moment, how badly I needed to pee. There, in those underground caves, was a vast collection of products that had only the purpose of making somebody clean. It was amazing.

I took a bar of soap, matching orange bottles of shampoo and conditioner, some cucumber-scented deodorant, mint toothpaste, a toothbrush, shaving cream, a razor, a bottle of citrusy smelling lotion, and a fluffy grey towel. I wrapped it all up in the towel and allowed Aaron to lead me through the tunnels once more.

Soon I could hear the sound of rushing water through the caves, and the air started to feel warm and humid. Despite the fog of steam in the air, I could tell that the cave was larger by the echoing of the running water around me. "There's an underground river in here," Aaron explained. "We use it for washing clothes and dishes out here, but there's a cave with slightly cooler water for bathing, and in the back of that there's a really sulfurous section where you can do what you've got to do. Don't go too far back in there, though, because it drains straight into the river, which goes completely underground again there. It isn't lit back there so that people can share baths but still have some privacy, so I'd use your light until you get used to it."

"Thanks," I told him. "Is there anywhere to put this stuff so it stays dry while I'm in there?"

"The water doesn't start right away. There's probably five feet of dry space before you reach it."

I thanked him again before venturing into the unknown cave, my light shining strangely off the water. I managed to stand it up pretty well between a few different rocks before finding a dry spot to put my stuff on. Then I stripped and stepped into the water. I walked around the edge until I found the sulfurous spring, relieved myself, and then grabbed my bar of soap. It took me three full body scrubs before I felt clean, and then I washed my hair twice before letting the conditioner to sit as I shaved my armpits and legs for the first time in months. Then I brushed my teeth twice, rinsed my hair again, and scrubbed at my clothes with the soap, though I knew that they were probably ruined.

Climbing out of the water, I toweled off, braided my hair down my back, applied my deodorant, rubbed in the lotion, and pulled on the clean t-shirt and shorts from my backpack. They were ragged and worn, but it was still a vast improvement over my previous clothes, and for once, I felt really and truly clean. When I left the bath, Aaron was waiting for me sitting against the wall.

He looked up when he heard me. "You clean up well," he told me.

"Yeah, a bath feels great after four days in the desert."

"Right. Food now?" he asked.

I nodded, turning my light off again and sticking it back in my pocket. He led me through the tunnels once more. Soon, I could see light up ahead, and I followed Aaron into a well-lit, low-ceilinged room. The cracks in the ceiling were larger here than in the hospital room, which was probably important as there was also a large rock oven thing that was emitting smoke and steam. The edges of the room were lit as well, by the same electric lanterns and lights as the hallways-I briefly wondered how they kept them going-and there were more humans in the room than I had seen total in the last six years.

The fifteen or so people didn't notice our entrance, but Aaron led me to a counter-like area in front of the oven, where a middle-aged woman was serving food. Aaron took a tray, and I mimicked him. The woman smiled at me. "You must be the one they went out to find last night," she said. "I'm Trudy. Welcome to the caves."

"Yup, that was me. I'm Tanya. And thank you," I said with a bit of a smile. It was strange to be meeting so many people at once. I had never been shy, not like Gabby was, but having extremely limited human contact for years, and none for a few months, had eliminated any ability that I had once had to easily get through new situations.

Once my tray was fully loaded with food, I turned around, looking for a familiar face in the group. Melanie caught my eye first, leaning back against Jared with her feet up on their table. She waved me over, sitting down beside Jamie, who was sitting across from them. Aaron followed me.

"I see you've already enjoyed a bath then," Melanie stated, eyeing my wet hair and the damp towel that was still wrapped around my bathing things and tucked under my arm. "After you eat we'll ask around for a place for you to sleep so that you can put your things in there, and after Jeb gives you the tour I'll take you to the main supply room so that you can get some clothes."

I just nodded, digging into my food. It was pretty simple, some sort of soup, some veggies that must have been grown in the caves, and a couple of rolls, but I was hungry, and after three days of eating granola bars, it tasted amazing.

The others had already eaten, except for Aaron, so I listened to their conversation, which seemed to mostly be centering around the baby.

"We still need to finish smoothing out the walls of the new cave and build a door," Jared was saying.

"It won't be a problem, Jared. We've got two months. I'm not going to pop next week, no matter how much I'd like to just get this over with," Melanie told him, rolling her eyes. "Aren't I supposed to be the one freaking out?"

This descended into a spout of bickering between the two of them that I decided wasn't worth my attention. It seemed like Jared stopped complaining about what _he_ still had to do, though, because Melanie kissed him lightly before standing up with a groan. "Come on, Tanya. We'll ask Heidi if you can share with her. She hasn't had a roommate since we managed to make a new room for Lacey, and there's plenty of space for two in there."

With that, Melanie dragged me along by the hand over to a tall woman roughly my age with long dark blond hair and bright blue eyes. She was just entering the kitchen, obviously having just finished some work in the fields. "Hey, Mel," she greeted as we approached her. "Who's this?"

"Heidi, this is Tanya. Tanya, Heidi. Tanya's new and she needs a roommate. Now that you've gotten rid of Lacey, I was hoping that you would take her in," Mel replied quickly.

Heidi looked me over quickly, taking in my bath things, which were still balled up in the towel under my arm, showing off my newness to the entire population of the caves. "Sounds great," she said. "Anyone has to be better than Lacey, anyway."

"Thank you, I think."

Heidi grinned. "It's a compliment. Or at least not an insult. I guess that I'll see you tonight, then," she concluded. She joined the throng of people who were now getting food. I guess that I'd missed most of the lunch rush, which I was extremely grateful for, as now everybody was looking at me and whispering with those beside them.

"Let's go and get you settled in," Mel said, grabbing my hand and pulling me through the tunnels. For somebody who was seven months pregnant she certainly did move quickly and confidently through the tunnels, even with the often uneven footing. It would probably take me weeks, if not months, to learn my way around. I could easily imagine getting lost for a long time in these tunnels, which only made me follow Melanie a little bit more closely.

Suddenly, I realized that the tunnels were getting a bit brighter. Now I could see that there were more little electric lights, here set into nooks carved out of the walls, whereas in other places they had just been sitting on the ground near the bends and rough spots. I slowed down and Melanie came back to check on me. "Oh, we started installing the lights about a year ago. Unfortunately, carving the holes out of the rock takes a while, so we've only really gotten through the sleeping areas. We're working on expanding it, though. The lights are all LED, which last a really long time, and the batteries in the lanterns recharge through motion, so if one goes out, somebody will just take it out and walk around with it for a day. That probably lasts about a month," she explained.

"That's ingenious," I murmured, looking for closely at one.

"The Souls are good for some things," she said with a shrug.

With that, we continued on. Then the tunnel split off into two, and Melanie walked down the one on the right, then through the first tunnel off of that one. She stopped at the second entrance, which was covered by a pretty piece of purple fabric. "This is Heidi's, and now your, room. It's the right tunnel, first offshoot, second room. Or if you can't find it that way, just wander around until you find someone to help or you find the purple cloth there."

"I can remember that. It's remembering how to get to the sleeping areas in general that will be more difficult," I told her, pushing the cloth out of the way to step inside.

The room was lit as well, and there was one mattress on the ground, pushed against the left wall, that was covered in a set of sheets and a blanket, a quilt folded up at one end, and a pillow on the other. Against the wall where the door was situated, there was a bookcase. Clothes were folded and placed on the bottom two, a small collection of books and notebooks were stacked on the next one along with some writing materials, and the top one had a plastic bin with holes that had soap and shampoo and the like in it. The other side of the room was almost empty, except for a wooden rack on which a towel and some more clothes were drying.

I assumed that side would be mine, and stepped over, dropping my damp towel bundle to the ground, followed by my backpack. Melanie hung my towel and damp clothes up for me as I emptied my things onto the ground. It wasn't much, but I folded my last clean t-shirt, and sorted my water bottles according to whether they were empty or not (only eight were left full), hoping that there was somewhere to get rid of the empty ones.

"Jeb's going to take your knives," Melanie told me.

"Why?"

"Nobody's allowed to carry a weapon in the caves except for him unless he gives them permission," she responded easily. "If you were on a raid, it would be different, but you're not."

"Fine. I'll give them to him before he gives me the so-called grand tour," I agreed, though I wasn't sure that I wanted to be wandering around without some protection quite yet. Jeb, apparently, made the the rules, though, and if I wanted to stay, I would have to follow them.

"And would you mind bringing the medicines to Doc?" she asked. "We're running low until after the raiders get back."

"It's not like they're a lot of good to me, anyway," I told her.

"Alright then," Melanie said. "I'll have Jared bring a mattress and pillow later, and after dinner I'll take you to the storage area like I said. You can pick out whatever you need from there."

"Thanks, Melanie."

"Call me Mel. Everybody else does. And you're welcome."

* * *

><p>Okay, so it's been three weeks, but I was on vacation for almost two of them, and now that I'm back I'm rushing about finishing everything that I have to do before I go back to school in FIVE DAYS AND THERE IS STILL WAY TOO MUCH TO DO AND I'LL PROBABLY DIE.<p>

Well, now that that's done, I hope you like the chapter! Keep reviewing! They're my favorite.


	28. History

Chapter 27

History

**Tanya**

Jeb's tour was, in one word, enthusiastic. It was easy to tell from how he showed off everything from the newly carved out rooms to the mirrors that lit the fields that he was extremely proud of his caves. They were also very much his. Everybody respected him, and he was the one in charge. Apparently, if something was under dispute, the inhabitants of the cave would hold a vote, but it Jeb didn't like the outcome, he changed it. "My house, my rules," seemed to be his motto.

After the tour, Mel, as promised, brought me to the storage rooms. One was used exclusively for food, but the other had general supplies, which included everything from sponges and clothing, to paper and even books. Some people (like Heidi) had a few of their own books, but most of them were shared between everybody like a library. I wished that I had the few that I had saved when we had first escaped, but they were with Tyler and Aqua and Gabby.

Despite the temptation of the books, though, I kept being drawn back to the clothes. Everybody in the caves had good clothing that fit well, and until now I hadn't understood how, but there were stacks of clothing in almost every style and size I could imagine. Whoever did the raiding must have stolen from stores and warehouses, not homes, in order to get such amounts and variety.

"You look like you've died and gone to heaven," Mel remarked.

"I haven't seen this much clothing in years, and I haven't have clothing that fit properly since I was fourteen," I retorted.

"I'll help you find some that fits, then," she told me with a laugh.

Twenty minutes later, I had a pile of new clothes that fit, including underwear, bras, socks, shirts, shorts, jeans, and even a couple of dresses. Mel also grabbed me two new pairs of sneakers to add to my pile. I felt a little bit bad about taking so much, but she assured me that most people had more than that, and that it tended to wear out pretty quickly because of the rougher washing methods that they had to use, rather than a machine, not to mention that there would just be more after the raiders returned.

Then, we moved onto the other things. I took top and bottom sheets and pillowcases in two different shades of blue, a fleece blanket, a purple quilt, an extra rechargeable lantern, and a plastic basket for my toiletries. Mel had me put those with the clothes and then led me to a third storage room which seemed to be a sort of workshop. There were saws and hammers hanging up, lumber in piles stacked up and pushed against the walls, and a few things that were works in progress, but what amazed me was the stock of finished items. They were mostly simple bookcases and cabinets and drying racks, but there were also painted doors with knobs and hinges, and a rocking chair and crib that must have been for Mel.

She must have seen me looking at them. "We've been working on actually making doors in this place. Curtains don't exactly provide enough privacy for most of us. It's the same idea as expanding caves that were too small before and creating new ones. We're trying to make it _nice_ for people to live here by doing things like making real furniture and squaring up the bedrooms. Once the stuff like that is done we're going to try to make real bed frames and better furniture, but it takes some practice, because nobody is exactly an expert carpenter."

"Jeb's ideas, right?" I asked.

"Some of them. He's definitely behind the expansion, but I don't think he really cares about making this place more... normal. Jared really wants to make it better for the baby, especially putting doors up in our room-rooms, now," she corrected, a hand going her belly.

"He loves you a lot," I told her.

"He'd better," she said with a laugh. "I put in a lot of work to get here."

I didn't want to push her to tell me about it, but I was too curious for my own good. "Jeb mentioned not wanting to tell me a story about you and Jared because you were more central to it when he was leading me here."

She nodded. "It isn't really about Jared and me, though," she said thoughtfully. She gave me a searching look, and seemed to decide that I was ready to hear whatever she had to tell me. "I'll tell you now. It's not like I can exactly work in the fields tomorrow, so being up late isn't a problem for me. Anyway, it's really about a Soul named Wanderer, and the fact that she was implanted inside me."

My shock was probably evident on my face, but I bit my tongue, letting her continue.

"Not every human fades away when a Soul is put in them. If they're strong-willed enough, they can stay, but they no longer have control of their body. That's how it was for me. It's more like looking through a window. You can see and feel and hear everything going on around you, but you don't have any control. It's a cage inside your own mind."

"How did you get caught in the first place," I asked.

"I had thought that I'd seen Sharon on TV in Chicago, so I was going to look for her. I left Jared and Jamie behind, and I went into a building that I thought was abandoned. Basically, there were Seekers, they chased me, and I jumped down an elevator shaft hoping that it would kill me so that they couldn't find Jamie or Jared, who were going to try to meet me here by following the lines. The next time I woke up it was to find that I couldn't move and somebody else was controlling my body."

"At first I hated her-Wanderer-and I blocked off my memories of Jamie and Jared so that she wouldn't be able to tell the Seeker that was on her case, but she dreamed my memories, and she fell in love with them, too, so I led her out here to the desert. We almost died, but Jeb found us, and he wouldn't let the others kill us on account that I'm his niece."

"The first few days were really bad. Jared hated us, but he wouldn't let anyone kill us, and people did try. Then Jeb had him go on a raid, taking the worst people with him. He introduced Wanderer to the caves like he would have any human, and decided that he was going to call her Wanda. When the raiders got back, Wanda was adjusted, and so was almost everybody else. She was teaching them all about the other planets that she had lived on. Jared was pissed, but Jamie, Jeb, and Ian kept him from killing us."

I smiled at the mention of Ian, but Mel just sped right on with her story.

"Then it got complicated. Wanda and I were getting along, Jeb had figured out that I was still alive, but stuck in my own head, and Jamie believed him, but Jared had to test it. He kissed Wanda, and I slapped him, which is something that she would never have done. I think that Ian punched him for it, because it turned out that he was in love with Wanda. There's a bunch more that happened, of course, but it ends with Wanda rescuing Jamie with Soul medicine, even though she had to force Jared to take her out of the caves, which wasn't allowed, even after she was here for months."

"The Seeker that had been on our case showed up, killed somebody who was living here, and injured Brandt. Wanda wanted the Seeker gone, but she didn't want us to kill her, so she showed Doc how to remove the Seeker from the human's body and send it away. She thought that because she could give me back to them, that she had to, even though it made her unhappy. She forced Doc to take her out of me and let her die here on Earth, because she didn't want a new life without us, especially Ian, on a distant planet."

"We didn't let her do that, though. Jared, Jamie, and I went to find her a new body, one that wouldn't have any human memories left. We took the Soul in it out, and made sure that the body wouldn't wake up on its own like me, and Lacey, who was the Seeker's body, and Candy, who you probably haven't met yet. The body didn't wake up, so we put Wanda in, and now she's part of our community here."

Mel seemed to be finished, so I finally blurted out what seemed to be the stupidest, and yet, most important, question. "You have a _Soul_ living here?"

She laughed. "Actually, we have two. I forgot, but Kyle went to find his girlfriend, Jodi's, body, and he brought her back, but when we took the Soul out, she never woke up, so we put her back in and she lives here too. Her name is Sunny, and she's very shy, but Wanda's trying to teach her how to raid without getting scared so that she doesn't have to go out every time. Sunny's very attached to Kyle, and he likes her, though he doesn't love her the way he loved Jodi."

"Wow. I never would have thought that the Souls would want to live _with_ humans. They all seem so set on wiping us out."

"Most of them are actually scared of us. It's only the Seekers who want to make sure that there aren't any of us left so that we can't be a threat to them anymore," Mel explained.

I nodded. This was a lot to take in. "I'm guessing that Ian and Wanda are happy now, then?"

"Definitely. They're attached at the hip, or they would be if Wanda was about eight inches taller, anyway. You aren't going to be one of those people who hates her-either of them-just because they're Souls, right?"

I shook my head. "I've spent enough time around them. Most of them are overly helpful and naive, but they don't understand what they've done to humans, as far as I can tell."

"That's what's different about Wanda. Because of my memories, she did and does understand that, plus she loves us." We sat together in silence for a few minutes, before Mel asked, "How did you come across us, then?"

"For the last few years my brother, sister, and I have been travelling with Ian and Kyle's younger sister," I explained.

"They have a sister?" Mel asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Does _nobody_ around here know that!" I exclaimed.

"Would you talk about a family member who you thought was taken?"

That was a stab to the gut. "I don't," I muttered. "Our other brother, Carson, was taken when the two of them were raiding. I was fifteen."

"I'm sorry." This time the silence between us was longer. I leaned back against the bookshelf behind me, suddenly exhausted.

"Are the rest of them coming?" Mel asked me eventually.

I shrugged. "I was looking for clues with Aqua, their sister, when we got separated. As long as she met back up with Tyler and Gabby, my siblings, and looked the same place I did for clues, they'll be fine. Hopefully, they're already on their way here."

"I hope so too," Mel said. Then she changed the subject. "Do you want any of this stuff for your room?"

"I'll just take a shelf, I guess," I told her with a shrug. I didn't really care much, as long as there was somewhere for me to put my things.

"Alright then. We can't exactly carry it with all of the other stuff, but we can bring all that to your room and make somebody else help us out on our way back here."

I agreed, so we went to grab all of my things, most of which I tried to take myself so that Mel's load would be lighter. She shot me a look, knowing exactly what I was up to, but she chose not to argue (which I guessed was probably unusual).

We ran into Aaron on the way to my new room, and sent him for the bookshelf. By the time that Mel and I had sorted out my things, he had returned with the shelf. He left quickly, followed by Mel, and I collapsed onto my mattress, almost moaning at how soft it was compared to the ground and the backseat of a car. I fell asleep before Heidi even came in.

* * *

><p>Okay, I'm awful. I'm so sorry. This has honestly just been sitting there for a month and I haven't done anything with it. Senior year is busy. Really, really busy. Anyway, it's finally up, and I'm sorry that it's a bit summary-ish, but I had to get this all out (plus, it's probably good review for you since I've been gone for so long). I hope you like it!<p> 


	29. Close

Chapter 28

Close

**2 Weeks Later, Nevada**

**Aqua**

We were getting so close. There was much less traffic going East, and the desert roads were so straight that we could even speed, able to see other cars coming from miles away. Tyler had finally fallen asleep, his face pressed against the window, hand twitching on his leg every now and then.

Gabby, however, was wide awake, sketching even as we drove over the bumps in the road. Her pencil was practically a stub with no eraser left. She had one more, but she was waiting as long as she possibly could to use it. I felt a sudden stab of guilt.

Before all this business with my brothers, we had lived a somewhat normal existence. We stayed somewhere for as long as we could before moving on. We could almost make a home. If we had wanted to, we probably really could have found somewhere remote enough to settle down. Now, moving constantly, it was no way for a fourteen-year-old to grow up. I had certainly always liked stability as a teenager, though Gabby hadn't exactly grown up the same way. She'd been on the run for almost half of her life.

"You okay back there?" I asked quietly.

"Fine," she said, her pencil still softly scratching on the paper, creating smooth, sure, strokes on her yellowing sketchpad.

"What are you drawing?"

"Tanya."

I swallowed hard. It seemed that everything was making me guilty. I had lost Tanya. And she was probably alone. Or she had already found my brothers, and she was stuck with people that she didn't know, and who didn't know her. And that was if she was alive. She could have been disposed of as an unfit body by the Seekers by now.

"It's not your fault, Aqua," Gabby said.

"What?"

"Whatever you're thinking about. None of this is your fault. It's the Soul's fault. But even, then, it's not really. They didn't know what they would be doing to us when they came here."

"You aren't really fourteen, are you? When I was fourteen I was worried that my brothers would never realise that I was older than four and could be more than friends with boys and be perfectly fine."

I saw her smile in the rearview mirror. "At least that worked out for you." She paused. "Do you think I'll ever have the chance to fall in love?"

My head was spinning. I'd known this girl for two years, been like a sister to her, and she still surprised me every other day, if not more often. "I hope so, for your sake, though I think Tyler would freak at the thought of a boy looking at you."

"I hope I do, too."

* * *

><p><strong>1 Day Later, The Caves<strong>

**Tanya**

I missed them. While I had been moving, at least there had been a goal. I was trying to get to Oregon, then here. Now that I was here, though, it was just fieldwork and meals and sleep. There was nothing really to distract me from the fact that the three people in the world who I loved were not here with me. Mel was trying to distract me. She had taken a liking to me, according to Jamie, who had endless questions about places that I'd been and shared his stories equally in return.

Aaron was a surprising friend, too. He wasn't quite as open as either of the Stryders, but good company, and good to work with in the fields. I was starting to get used to the work now, too. I hadn't exactly been out of shape, but the desert had taken a lot of my energy, and I definitely didn't have the real muscle for fieldwork yet. My first morning after working the day before had left me with sore muscles in places where I hadn't realized muscles existed before. I understood why everybody was in such good shape.

Heidi was another good guide to cave life. She introduced me to the rest of the younger women in the caves. They were all pretty nice… well, except for Lacey. Apparently, she'd had a Seeker inside of her before Wanda had taught them all how to remove them. Wanda. That was another thing. I hadn't met her yet, of course, because she was still on the raid with Kyle and Ian and the other Soul, Sunny. It sounded like both Souls were just as accepted as the humans all were, with a few exceptions. I just didn't know what to think. I had to meet them.

There were a lot of people who I was hoping would arrive soon.

* * *

><p><strong>3 Days Later, Picacho Peak, Arizona<strong>

**Aqua**

This was the place. This was the starting point. It was about one in the morning and the convenience store part of the gas station was closed, though there was a van parked outside. It was unmarked, and I would have been suspicious if not for the fact that the Souls were all so nice. Carefully opening my door, I stepped out of the car. Tyler was already out, rummaging around in the trunk for something to eat, and Gabby was putting her sketchbook back into her backpack.

Something flashed in the corner of my eye. I whipped my head to the side. There was nobody outside. Somebody must have been inside, after all. Creeping towards the store, I opened the unlocked -of course-door and slipped inside.

I could hear whispers coming from one aisle. Stepping as lightly as possible, I made my way towards the aisle. There was two people there, a man and a woman, or maybe a girl. She was petite, her blond hair practically glowing in the light, and he was large with dark hair. My hand fell to my waist, where I still kept the gun that I had stolen all those years ago. I quickly pulled it out and released the safety. It clicked into place and I winced at the sound, but they didn't notice.

Then I felt the blade at my neck. "Engage the safety and drop the gun," a man growled into my ear, his voice low.

The other two whipped around as I did what he asked. My heart was beating quickly in my chest, and at the same time I both wanted and didn't want Tyler to walk through the door at that moment. I hadn't even told them that I was going inside. We'd come this far. How could I be so careless now? I was such an idiot, walking in somewhere with zero backup without staking it out.

"That's a good girl," the man told me. "You two really need to be more careful," he said casually to the man and woman in front of me. She was definitely a woman, though a young one, younger than me, and probably Tanya. Tanya. I'd never get to tell her how sorry I was that I'd had to leave her behind.

"Says that guy that almost ran a red light with a Seeker on his tail," the man in front of me retorted. "What should we do with this one? Take her back?"

"I don't think she's a Soul." It was another woman, also blond. I couldn't make her face out as she appeared from the other end of the aisle. In fact, I couldn't see any of their faces. It was just too dark. But they had to be humans, right? If they were questioning whether or not I was, they _had_ to be?

"Of course she is! She came with another one, too. He's outside," the man holding me spat.

"No, Sunny's right, Kyle. Only Seekers carry guns, and they're hardly ever loaded. They're mostly for scare tactics. Hers is definitely loaded, and far too old to be a regulation weapon," the first woman said.

Kyle. "Kyle?" I wondered out loud. His knife pushed a little bit harder against my skin, drawing blood. "Ian?" I whispered, squinting at the other man, trying to make out his features. Both of them were definitely tall enough that they could be my brothers, but their flashlights only made the shadows on their faces worse.

"What's it to you?" the man holding the knife asked again. It had to be Kyle. It just had to be. If it wasn't I was dead.

"Check my eyes. Please, check my eyes… and my neck. I swear that I'm human, but I'm not about to explain with a knife to my throat," I told them desperately. Apparently that was enough. I gulped as a flashlight hit my eyes. No reflected pools. A hand checked my neck, finding no scar there.

The knife was gone from my throat, but Kyle still held my arm. The two women were standing farther back, one of them holding the gun in distaste, gripped between her thumb and index finger as though it was a dirty rag.

"Thank you," I started. Then I stopped. I opened my mouth and closed it again. Finally, I managed to get something out. "It's me, Aqua. I've been trying to find you for more than a year, but I found the stuff in my old locker about a month ago, and I've been making my way here since then."

They stared at me. Kyle actually stepped back in shock, and Ian just stared at me.

"How do we know you aren't lying?" he asked.

"Kyle wrote the notes. You can tell because his handwriting good, and yours is awful. When you were twelve and Kyle was fourteen you both liked the same girl, but he claimed dibs because he was older. Neither of you liked me until you realized that I was just as good at soccer as you were. Dad used to-"

"It really is you," Ian said. "But, we thought that you were dead. The locker was just… wishful thinking, really. I mean, just…"

Kyle moved first, pulling me into a bone-crushing hug and spinning me around in the aisle. "You've grown, sis," he joked. "And you're far too pretty. We'll have to keep the boys off with a stick."

I groaned. "I've been fine for almost five years without your help, thank you very much."

"Five years is too long. Never agree to separate again," Ian said, repeating the hugging process.

When he put me down, I remembered the two women. "I think some introductions need to be made. And I have some people you need to meet, too," I added.

"Okay, but don't freak out," Ian said, suddenly more somber.

"Why would I freak out?" I asked, bemused.

He sighed and gestured me towards the two blonds. "Aqua, this is Wanda, my partner. Her full name is Wanderer. Earth is her tenth planet, and she is a Soul. Wanda, this is Aqua, my long lost sister."

She looked slightly nervous about how I would react, fidgeting with the hem of her top. I was frozen. My brother was dating an alien. One of the aliens that had taken over our planet and forced us to separate. But if he was with her, then she had to be good, right? "It's nice to meet you, Wanda. You're far too beautiful for my brother, so he must have charmed you."

"It's good to meet you, too. I'm sorry, but Ian and Kyle have never talked about you before."

"That's alright. I didn't talk very much about them for a long time."

Kyle stepped forward to wrap his arm around the other woman. She held tightly to him and turned her face up towards me. "Aqua, this is Sunlight Passing Through the Ice, but she likes to be called Sunny. She's also a Soul, but.."

"She's in Jodi's body," I gasped, suddenly recognising her, realizing why it seemed that she fit so well in Kyle's arms. Because she belonged there. He nodded.

I bit my lip. "Are you… partnered?" I asked, using the same word that Ian had.

"No," Jodi-Sunny-said. "I am very attached to Kyle, because of the memories of this body, but we are not partners in the way that Ian and Wanda are," she answered diplomatically.

This was too weird. I had to go back to something a little bit normal. Tyler and Gabby were still outside. "Okay, um, there are two people outside who don't exactly know where I've gone. Would you go back out with me?" I asked.

"Of course. We trust you, Ay," Kyle said, slinging his other arm over my shoulder.

I smiled, but removed myself from under his arm to lead the way.

"There you are," Tyler hissed from a few feet away. He looked angry, but his eyes softened a little. "Why didn't you tell us where you were going?"

"I saw something inside, so I went to check it out," I told him, barely able to hold in my smile. "It's them, Ty. It's my brothers… well, and two others, but don't overreact, okay."

"Why would I…?" he started, but he trailed off as the foursome exited the building behind me, coming into the bright streetlight that lit the gas station. The light reflected off of Wanda's and Sunny's eyes, casting silver circles onto the ground. "Oh. Of course. Why would I ever overreact to this? They're _Souls_, Ay!" He tried to pull me behind him, but I stood firm. "Gabby, stay by the car!" he yelled.

"Oh, fucking hell," I grumbled. "They're with my brothers, Ty. They… get along."

* * *

><p>Alright, it's been about a month, I know, but in my defense that did include the end of the term at school and Thanksgiving, both of which were extremely busy. Hopefully I'll be able to update again soon.<p>

Oh, and what did you think? You could tell me in a review. *nudgenudgewinkwink*


	30. Reaquainting

Chapter 29

Reacquainting

**Tyler**

Her brothers 'got along' with Souls! What was the world coming to? Aqua's hand met my arm and she pulled my head down so that my eyes were level with hers. "Look, Ty. These are my brothers. I trust them with my life. More importantly, I would trust them with _your_ life. So stop it. If they say that Wanda and Sunny are okay, then they're okay."

"Wanda and Sunny?" I wondered. They're names were so… normal.

"Wanderer and Sunlight Passing Through the Ice, if you want to be fancy about it," one of the brothers added. His nose was straight. Ian, then. The smaller of the two women was standing just behind him, her large silver rimmed eyes looking at me. She just looked so… innocent. I couldn't connect her with the ruthless Seekers that I imagined chasing me down in the middle of the night.

Aqua's hand slipped into mine and squeezed it. I squeezed back. "Tyler, these are my brothers, Ian and Kyle. Wanda is Ian's partner, and Sunny is Kyle's friend. They're both Souls, but they live with my brothers."

"And the others," Kyle added.

"Others?" I asked, heartbeat quickening. Maybe Tanya was with them.

"A lot of others. There are thirty seven in our group alone, and more than fifty others scattered around. And that's only the ones we know of," Ian answered.

"Is there anybody new? Who recently arrived? She was ahead of us, we think. She's nineteen, brown hair, a little smaller than Aqua."

"We don't know. We've been on a raid for more than a month. We're close to home, though."

I felt more than heard Gabby coming up on my other side. "This is Gabby, my sister. The girl I was describing is Tanya, our other sister. We were separated, but she knew everything that we did about how to find you. We were hoping that she made it ahead of us."

"It's nice to meet you, Gabby," Wanda said first. She was hardly taller, but Gabby still looked up into her eyes.

"It's nice to meet you, too," she whispered, her shyness taking over.

"We should move on," Kyle said. "If we want to be back before the sun gets too high in the sky."

"It's that close?" Aqua asked.

"A straight shot through the desert," Ian replied. "Our other van is parked behind the station, if you want to just hop in with us?"

"We've got a lot of our things in our car," Aqua said. "Maybe we should just follow you."

"Sounds like a plan," Kyle agreed. The rest of us nodded our agreement.

The three of us were quiet as we followed the two black vans through the desert. I was concentrating on the desert ahead of us. With no headlights, rocks seemed to appear out of nowhere and we were bumped and jolted with almost every rotation of the tires.

"I hope Tanya's there," Gabby said after a while.

"So do I."

* * *

><p><strong>Tanya<strong>

I woke around dawn to an unusual amount of commotion outside of the cave that Heidi and I shared. I could make her out in the semi-darkness, hunched over tying her shoes. "What's going on?" I asked blearily.

"The raiders are back. Everybody's helping to unload before the sun's really up," she said. Standing up and stretching, she smiled. "The food is going to be amazing for the next few days. We eat all the perishables before they go bad. Fresh fruit and bacon and milk and cheese. You'll be so stuffed you won't know what to do with yourself. Hurry up and change so you can help unload!" she finished, calling over her shoulder as she broke away from her thoughts of food stepped through our purple veil door.

I groaned, but stood up anyway, gathering my clothes together for the day. Less than two minutes later, dressed, I almost ran into Aaron on my way out. "Oh good. You're ready. The raiders are back, and they've got new people with them," he told me as we walked back where he had come from.

I broke into a light jog, watching the ground carefully. "Why didn't Heidi say that! Do you know their names?"

He shook his head and I sped up. He was right behind me the whole way. The storage area was abuzz with activity, people everywhere stacking crates full of food and other supplies. I saw a box of the bacon that Heidi had so longingly mentioned being carried back towards the kitchens, but didn't allow myself to linger.

I almost ran straight into Brandt and then Paige on my way back out. Back in the open air for the first time since entering the caves, the sun starting to creep over the horizon, my shadow fell to my right, stretching into blackness. I didn't even let myself enjoy the air that wasn't scented with a strange combination of people and mud, and instead immediately began to scan the area. Most of the activity was centered around the two black vans near the cave entrance, but I could see Jeb's familiar silhouette farther off with a smaller group of six or so.

My eyes strained to see their faces as I approached, when one broke off. Before I knew it, Gabby was in my arms, her blond hair gold in the sunrise. I pulled her in tight. She was taller now, the top of her head equal with my nose. "You've grown."

"It's been almost a year, Tanya, of course I've grown." She was almost chiding me, and I sobered at the reminder of how long I had been away. She was so grown up now. Despite that, I kissed her on the top of the head, even as she squirmed slightly in my grip.

The rest of the group had followed her over, albeit at a much slower pace. "Well, fancy seeing you here, Tanya," Aqua said with a grin. She hugged me quickly before allowing Tyler to practically kill me with his rib-crushing grip.

"How long have you been here?" he asked after I managed to escape his grip.

"Almost three weeks, slowpoke." I jabbed him in the side for emphasis.

He shot me a glowering look. "Travelling with three people is more dangerous. We had to be careful."

I suddenly realized that everybody else was watching us. "Oh, you've already met Jeb, I guess, but this is Aaron. Aaron, meet my sister, Gabby, my brother, Tyler, and his girlfriend and my honorary sister, Aqua."

"Girlfriend?" a man that I didn't know asked, shock and annoyance permeating his voice.

"Tanya," Aqua groaned. "I didn't tell them that yet, but now that his pigheadedness had made itself apparent, you should meet Kyle. And Ian, of course. You probably remember that they're my brothers."

"Brothers?" Aaron asked. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. You two have a sister? I swear, in more than four years how has that never come up. I pity you. Truly," he told Aqua.

She shrugged and stepped between Tyler and the evil gazes of her brothers. "We've been travelling together for two years, so would you two just stop it! You have absolutely no right to judge the people around me. I'm not sixteen anymore and I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions and defending myself if need be."

They seemed temporarily appeased, though I was pretty sure that was only because of Aqua's presence. I would have to warn Tyler later to watch his back, though I didn't think that they would really hurt him, if only for their sister's sake.

Jeb broke up our reunion and every pair of hands was put to work unloading the car and vans. I gratefully accepted the things that I hadn't seen in months (just a few books, an old pair of sneakers, and some stolen shampoo), and added them to the bookshelf in my room. Everybody else's things were temporarily being stored in the game room until later in the day, when we would have time to figure out new sleeping quarters... again.

I was introduced to Wanda and Sunny, who seemed to be attached at the hip to Aqua's brothers, and the day was filled with unloading and catching up and good food. By sunset I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. It was wonderful to have everybody back, but it was equally difficult to get used to, as well. I had gotten used to it here in the last few weeks, mostly talking with Mel and Aaron and Heidi. The routine had been calming, and all of this in one day was a lot to handle.

"You are not sharing a room with him," Ian told Aqua, pointing at Tyler.

"You are not the boss of me," she snapped. I rubbed my temples. This was giving me a headache.

"You shouldn't be sharing a room with some guy! He could take advantage of you."

Tyler looked like he was going to say something. I kicked him under the table and he closed his mouth again.

Aqua snorted. "Yeah, as if Tyler could take advantage of me," she said. She had a fair point. There was no way that my brother could raise a hand to her, or tolerate it from anyone else. Nobody seemed inclined to reply after that, even Tyler.

Aqua looked smug. I rolled my eyes. She could have won that argument with her eyes closed, and really there hadn't been as much objection as I would have thought.

I slipped away from the table. Almost everybody else had gone to bed, and Gabby was yawning in her seat. She would be sharing with Heidi and I until another one of the caves that was being worked on was finished. Aqua and Tyler would be taking Mel and Jared's room, since they were moving into a larger, newly expanded one where they would have room for the baby. Mel was only five weeks from her due date now, and getting crankier every day, though that was mostly because of everybody else fussing, along with the fact that she had to pee every fifteen minutes.

I tapped Gabby on the shoulder and she stood up. We walked in silence to our room. Heidi was already asleep inside. I let Gabby change first, leaning against the wall outside to wait. I was almost nodding off when I heard footsteps coming and Aaron appeared, his hair wet from bathing, a towel slung over his arm. I hadn't seen him for long after this morning because he had gone with Jared to hide the cars. They'd gotten back for dinner, sweaty and covered in dust after running back through the heat of the desert.

"You don't look very happy for somebody who just got her family back," he remarked.

"I am. I'm just exhausted."

"Oh." The silence stretched between us and I was turning to go inside when his hand closed around my wrist. I spun back to face him only to find him much closer than he had been.

"I'm happy for you. That they're back," he said quietly.

"Thank you."

He walked down the hallway and I turned around, shifting the makeshift door out of the way only to see Gabby standing right on the other side.

"He likes you," she said.

I scoffed. "He's just being nice."

"He was watching you during dinner."

I frowned. "Just go to sleep, Gabby."

She did, and she fell asleep much more quickly than I did, despite the fact that my eyes felt scratchy and irritated, like they were full of the desert sand. Gabby's words had put strange images of Aaron dancing around me into my head. Everything that he had done since my arrival suddenly seemed to be filled with hidden meaning. Why had he been the one to give me a tour? Why was he so often the one to help me out, and not Heidi? Why had he really grabbed my wrist earlier? And why was just thinking about all of this making me more confused?

Why did having more people in your life just make everything more complicated?

* * *

><p>Yes, it's been a while, and yes, I'm a horrible updater, and we all knew that already at this point. I really wanted to post this yesterday, too, but the site wasn't working, so that kind of sucked. Anyway, here is the second chapter that we have all been waiting for... finally.<p>

And this is the final chapter of this story... but don't worry! There will be an epilogue that I am going to try really hard to post this weekend. And on the topic of a sequel, I do have a few ideas. However, they don't have any semblance of a plot yet, so there's a lot of playing that I have to do before it can be considered, and it probably won't be posted for a while after I finish this story. I'm about to get really busy, and I want to have some written before I post the beginning. I hope you liked this chapter, and that it lived up to your expectations! Feel free to review and scold me for my delay or just to remind me to get that prologue up soon.


	31. Epilogue

Epilogue

**6 Months Later**

**Aqua**

I had never imagined that it could be like this after the end of the world. Really, I had never imagined living past the end of the world, but I had, and it was more than I could have ever imagined.

I was brought out of my reverie by a soccer ball, thrown at me by Tyler. "You're not supposed to use your hands."

"Maybe if you had been paying any attention I would listen to the rules, but I wasn't even sure that you would notice getting hit. What were you thinking about?" he asked. I kicked the soccer ball into the air and caught it, something that had taken me about three hours to master at the age of thirteen.

"Just thinking about how we're lucky to be here," I said, vaguely gesturing to those around us.

We were gathered in the game room. Not everybody, but around half of inhabitants of the caves. Near the entrance, Mel stood holding little Charlie, leaning back against Jared, who, even after five months, couldn't seem to stay away from his son for more than an hour or so at a time. She handed the baby off to him and gestured for me to send her the ball.

I dropped it and kicked it towards her, sending Tyler a pointed look. He threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Fine! I always liked football better anyway."

I scoffed. "Right. Sure you did."

He stuck his tongue out at me and I couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face. Tanya and Mel were passing the ball back and forth now, when Kyle intercepted and kicked it to where a goal would have been set up if we had actually been playing a game.

"If we're letting Kyle play we'd better have a spare ball around here somewhere," Tyler said. I stepped up to him and shrugged before grabbing his arm and pulling it over my shoulder. He was right. Kyle had managed to destroy the last two soccer balls, apparently, and this one was getting a little bit worn in places. I wouldn't have been surprised if it-

Suddenly a very flat soccer ball was sitting close to my feet, kicked their by Tanya, who grinned apologetically. "Nice one," Aaron told her, coming from where he had been talking to Ian and Wanda, who were as wrapped up in each other as ever.

"It's not my fault," she scowled. "I'm pretty sure that Kyle cracked it first."

"Oh, no! I am not being blamed for this again," the older O'Shea brother warned her.

"But it's so easy to blame you for things," Tanya objected. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure that there are at least two more balls in the storage room."

Aaron joined her in her search and they left together. I smiled to myself. She didn't even notice how his eyes always found her across the room, or how he was always the one ready to help her, even when there were half a dozen other things that he could be doing. At this rate, Tyler would figure it out before Tanya did.

They returned quickly, a brand new ball under Aaron's arm. We split into teams then, ready to play a real match. Wanda sat out, holding Charlie so that his parents could both play. Ian and Kyle captained, and the teams were soon made, goals marked out on the ground.

The game was fast, as always. Despite our hard work in the fields, everybody always seemed to have more than enough energy when it came to soccer games. I scored the first goal against Ian's team, but they quickly scored on us. Twice. Ian was too tall for me to properly be able to block him, and Kyle, annoyingly enough, was focusing on Jared.

It wasn't until almost half-time that I managed to get the ball away from Tanya and pass to Jamie, who passed to Mel, who quickly scored on Aaron with a tricky shot right near the edge of the goal. Our team cheered, and Wanda called for half-time. I gulped down some water and leaned back against a wall, catching my breath. It didn't take very long for the game to start up again, though the second half was a bit more relaxed than the first.

I would have scored again, but Aaron managed to catch the ball on the tips of his fingers and fling it to Jared. He didn't score that time, but the next time that he had the ball he did, and we were never able to respond in kind.

It had been a high-scoring match, but Jeb and Maggie, the two usual goalies, hadn't played, so that wasn't much of a surprise. Tyler and I moped for a while after our loss while Tanya gloated. Aaron led her in some sort of strange victory dance around what had just been the soccer field. She laughed as he spun her out and back in, catching her in his arms.

Then he kissed her. If I hadn't been holding onto Tyler's arm I was certain that he would have marched over there and torn them apart. Aaron pulled black quickly, and I could practically hear his stammered apologies from across the room, his face visibly red even in the caves' dim lights. Tanya just kissed him again, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

I had been wrong. She and Tyler had discovered Aaron's feelings at exactly the same time. Well, that would just be one more thing for him to deal with. After all, based on the number of pages in Gabby's sketchbook filled with images of Jamie, Tyler would have more than one little sister to fuss over. Luckily, I would be there to make sure that he didn't screw it up too badly.

* * *

><p>And this is the end. That's a wrap, folks. Finished. Complete. Almost two years in the making, but I have finished this fic. On the sequel side of things, I will post a little note on here so that if you are following this story you don't have to follow me (not that I would be against that, of course *wink*), if and when I choose to write one. Thank you for loyally following me through my slow updates, reviewing, and just being generally great and nice and not being mean or even yelling at me for taking really long breaks.<p>

Thank you again.


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